Six years ago, looking down at a rack of bikes on the University of Wisconsin campus, Austin Stoffers, Michael Fishman, and Zach Shau realized that style and affordability were equal but oft-ignored parts of the bicycling experience.

Jordan Schau, brother to Zach and a childhood friend to Austin and Michael, was an all-around computer-whiz attending Columbia. He soon joined the effort reshape the bicycle industry. And so, Pure Cycles was born – or, rather, Frankenstein’d.