Bob Parlee – founder of Parlee Cycles – has died peacefully at home with his family after suffering with cancer for four years.
Bob founded Parlee Cycles 25 years ago after a successful career building high-performance carbon fibre racing boats.
In the late 90s, he began applying his knowledge of composites and engineering to bicycles. By late 1999, he and his wife Isabel had quit their day jobs and founded Parlee Cycles.
Word spread quickly about the unique, ultra-light and high-performance carbon bikes coming out of the Parlee workshop on the North Shore of Boston.
Parlee became the name in custom carbon framesets and remains, to this day, the high watermark of carbon frames.
Parlee debuted the first sub-900g frame in 2004 and took on the biggest brands in the world with its off-the-peg sub-800g Z5 in 2010.
It also adopted new tech earlier than most, debuting a disc-brake equipped TT/tri bike ahead of the competition.
The 2012 Z-Zero brought not only custom geometry but also custom ride quality.
A friend I always looked forward to seeing
I have first-hand experience with Parlee Cycles and Bob.
Back in 2013, I had the pleasure of going through the process of speccing a custom bike with Parlee.
Retul fittings and lots of consultations went into creating my Parlee Z-Zero. Weighing 6.65kg and replete with original SRAM Red eTap, power meter and Zipp wheels, it still has pride of place in my garage.
The absolute icing on the cake of this experience was heading to Bespoke Cycles in Farringdon to collect the bike. There, I had the honour of meeting Bob face-to-face and spending the day talking through his bike history and all about my bike.
They say never meet your heroes, but that wasn’t the case with Bob.
We spent hours chatting about all things bikes, including outlining his time spent making bikes that went uncredited in the world’s biggest races underneath the biggest stars of the day, including Tyler Hamilton and others – that remain off the record.
Bob had the unique ability to distill the most complex of engineering and composites tech into language that was easy to understand. I learned more that day about carbon fibre bike building than from myriad brand presentations and much PR spin.
On that, PR spin is something Parlee didn’t do – Bob simply let his product speak for itself.
I left that meeting, not only with one of the very best road bikes I’ve ever ridden, but also with a connection to that bike that remains to this day.
Bob’s personality made him more than a bike builder of note, but also a friend I always looked forward to seeing over the years at shows and events.
Bob led the design and development of Parlee for two decades. He stepped away from the business full-time four years ago, after his cancer diagnosis. Even in his semi-retirement, Bob kept sketching out new ideas and designs in the notebooks he was never without.
In 2023, Bob sold Parlee to British ex-pat John Harrison. He explained to me back in 2023 that, as a long-time Parlee customer, he wanted to take on the rebuilding of the business and continue the work Bob started, ensuring the legacy of the Parlee name.
Bob's death marks the passing of one of the greats of bike design and the builder of some of the most desirable road bikes of the past 20 years.
As I finish writing this, I’m heading to my garage to pull down the Z-Zero from its prime position, wipe it down, check the tyres, and head out for a ride to remember a brilliant bike designer, engineer and friendly face who will be sorely missed.
So, thanks for the ride Bob – it's been a privilege.
