Southern England in the spring of 1981. Continuous rain falls on the gently rolling hills. In the middle of it stands a young cyclist with a tousled head and a fully packed bike. He looks annoyed. The young adventurer had saved up for weeks and looked forward to this trip. Now and here he can't imagine anything less exciting than getting through the next night in a soaked sleeping bag and with damp clothes. The young man sees a truck drive by. The continuous rain pelts down on his tarpaulin, but the cargo remains dry. This event marks the birth of the waterproof ORTLIEB panniers. Because the curly head is Hartmut ORTLIEB, who is just beginning to turn his frustration into creative resourcefulness. After returning home, he makes a packing container on his mother's sewing machine out of red truck tarpaulin. He fixes the lid with a piece of webbing, and a hook from the hardware store is used to attach it to the luggage rack. One bag will soon become two. Friends and acquaintances show interest in the functional bags and Hartmut is approached by bicycle dealers more and more often. This results in the first sales strategy and the first series of bags. The sewing machine moves into a backyard garage. The rear pannier construction is followed by a handlebar bag. The demand soon overwhelmed the one-man operation. Family members and friends are brought in and in 1982 the ORTLIEB company is founded. The first product brochure presents the still manageable range, which will soon be presented at the first trade fair in a dark niche under the escalator. The effective advertising strategy in the still manageable outdoor industry is word of mouth - the effect is overwhelming. But the memory of the damp sleeping bag does not allow the inventor to sleep peacefully. Seams are somehow leaky and so the first attempts at welding are made. The magic word is high frequency. The tests will soon be ready for series production. From now on, ORTLIEB bags are 100% WATERPROOF! The first milestone has been set. The next one follows immediately: the roll closure. Simple but effective, because the result is not only waterproof, but also buoyant. The hardware store hooks on the panniers no longer meet the increased demands and so the resourceful self-taught person puzzles out the first self-locking fastening system Quick-Lock1.
In the meantime the company has grown to a workforce of 20, including Mother Ortlieb. The demand for waterproof panniers is growing steadily. This is why ORTLIEB launched the first waterproof “Packman” backpack with an ergonomic carrying system in the mid-1990s. Now the capacities in the Nuremberg city center are finally bursting at the seams and the 60-strong workforce is moving to the new company building in Heilsbronn. Ortlieb has become an indispensable synonym for the waterproof bicycle bag. An extensive following of avowed all-weather cyclists carries the customers of the reliable brand out into the world. A not insignificant part of it are bicycle couriers, who are part of the street scene in every big city. They are the cycling proof that resilience is a fully packed promise at ORTLIEB. The founders of the cycling and outdoor industry were visionaries. What was non-conformism for them back then is literally commonplace today: the bicycle has proven itself as a universal means of transport, as a piece of sports equipment on the road and off-road. ORTLIEB users still show today how the visions of the founder became reality. Since the company was founded, ORTLIEB has been a driving force in the bicycle and outdoor market and has set standards in the field of highly functional equipment. The goal has always remained the same: People who actively spend their free time in nature should feel independent of everything they cannot influence - in other words: the weather. The company now has more than 220 employees an assortment of more than 500 individual products. Even today everything is under one roof: from development and design to mechanical engineering and production to sales, marketing and shipping. All waterproof products are manufactured using the high-frequency welding process at the company's headquarters in Heilsbronn. Quality Made in Germany guarantees high-quality outdoor equipment for every requirement, in every weather, in every terrain.
ORTLIEB is characterized by hermetic closure systems such as roll closures, waterproof zippers, Velcro fasteners or sealing lips. Numerous equipment features are patented and repeatedly set new standards in the bicycle and outdoor market. The high-quality products with their inventive details arise from the ideas of the multidisciplinary team, which always has its ears on the market and thus with the increasing demands of users. So tear the Innovat