The New York Times has an interesting piece about how American bike technology and manufacturing have left the Europeans in the dust:

Adding insult to injury, after decades as trend-setters, European bicycle manufacturers now find themselves copying America's mountain-bike-influenced style.

The role reversal surprises even some in the industry.

"You can't go to Italy and tell them how to make leather goods in a new way or how to run their fashion industry," said Richard Sachs, who builds bicycles by hand at his shop in Chester, Conn. "Yet with bikes, the Italians and everyone else in Europe caved in to the American designs."

Yves Blanc, the editor in chief of Le Cycle, a French magazine that only printed its first review of an American bicycle in 1992, credits Cannondale, which is based in Bethel, Conn., with spurring the interest in American designs. Seeing little room for growth in mountain bike sales, Cannondale looked to the European road bike market during the mid-1990's.