Z Zip Designs

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Zzip designs was started by Glen Brown in the middle ‘70s. The original patent was issued in 1976 as well as the trademark for ‘Zzipper’ and ‘Zzip Designs’ the company. This was to become critical in a trademark dispute years later with zipp disc, the company who copied our name in ’86 (which the Dept. of Commerce gave a trademark). To truly understand the motivation and the name you have to remember that in the early ‘70s we had these awful oil embargos. Long lines at the gas pumps, hot tempers, fights in some cases and many a discussion about a solution! I knew Glen in the early ‘70s when he took some drum classes from me. After a while he invited me and a dancer friend of mine up to his house for Sunday afternoon get-togethers. Barbeque, play some drums, the girls would work on dance steps or costumes. Glen had just graduated Cal Tech, majoring in aeronautical engineering. He had this road bike he rode all the time and thought perhaps the most immediate solution would be to get people out of their cars and onto a bike (especially the big cars with only one person in them). He was one of the original members of the IHPVA and was president for 1.5 years in 1985-‘86. I don’t make any great claims to being hip to all the nuances of aerodynamics. My background had been a missile mechanic/trouble shooter for the Nike Hercules system. A short line defense with nuclear capability designed in ‘58 and continued thru the ‘60s. Since I set the missile up for flight, I had to know a little about ‘pitch’ & ‘yaw’, solid propulsion systems and hydraulics. When my top secret clearance came in, my duties expanded to crypto deciphering. I had to report directly to NORAD Headquarters, FT. ENT, Company The good old days when the Russian sub’s were right off our coast! I left the service in ‘68 with a commendation sent down from NORAD, which I finally got de-classified. Glen got a kick out of some of the stories about no-notice inspections. Whenever someone would ask about relative Reynolds numbers regarding the road bike fairing, I would hand the phone to Glen! So Connie asks the question: “What is the deal with this road bike riding around the globe on your logo? Also, what is this word ‘ZZIPPER’?” Well Connie, the upright rider with ZZ-T riding around the globe is mine after Glen & I separated in ‘86. I kept it out of respect for Glen and his favorite fairing. It was his brainchild if you will. The term ZZIPPER comes from aerodynamics, when an aircraft design clicks in and works well, one calls it the Zipper! Any history buffs out there can look up the development of the Lockheed F-104 Star Fighter and see this term used. Of course Glen couldn’t trademark ZIPPER one Z, so he picked 2-ZZ’s!! The original business slogan was ‘Advanced Vehicles and Components’. This was used on all business stationary and cards until we separated the business in Nov. ‘86. I was very proud of this and all the products we developed. I then changed the slogan to ‘windscreens for human powered vehicles’. Also, at this time, we were selling 100 zz-t’s a year to Germany for many years. I later had a distributor in Belgium, however the 180% duties dictated the future there.

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