Loriol-sur-Drôme is a pretty, if slightly unremarkable, corner of southeastern France. It sits in a flat valley beside the river Rhône and, being sandwiched as it is between the Ardèche, Haute Alpes and Vaucluse departments, it’s not unusual for the Tour de France, Critérium du Dauphiné or Paris-Nice races to pass through. Yet without any famous climbs to boast of, the region is never very likely to make the highlights reel when the action is condensed for the 7pm replay.
Nevertheless, this small slice of France has had an outsized influence on modern cycling technology, thanks to carbon fibre pioneer Corima. It’s a brand that older cycling fans will remember fondly for its space-age monocoque frames and bladed four-spoke wheels, but when the company first started nearly half a century ago, cycling wasn’t even on the menu.
In July 1993 Chris Boardman used a complete Corima bike to ride 52.27km to capture the Hour record
The name ‘Corima’ is a portmanteau of ‘Cooperation Jean-Marie Riffard and Pierre Martin’, a reference to the two men who founded the company in 1973 to make moulds and models for the automotive and aeronautics industries. Five years later, in 1978, Martin had a son, Pierre-Jean, who is now Corima’s chief technical and product officer, and who today explains to what it
