Building Rocket Espresso
From The Top
Rocket Espresso is not a cycling brand per se, but it’s arguably the best known coffee brand who are part of the orbit in our own little cycling world. It’s only a recent phenomenon that cycling and coffee have gone hand in hand, and most cyclists have an appreciation for beautiful, mechanical, craftsmanship which Rocket does so wonderfully. New Zealander Andrew Meo is the co-founder of Rocket Espresso and it’s no coincidence that the brand found its way into cycling. Andrew is a lifelong avid cyclist and his passion for coffee didn’t come until a bit later in his life......
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Building Ritchey
From The Top
So much of Tom Richey's story has already been documented and I didn’t want to just do that again. In fact, I can’t do justice to telling Tom’s intertwined life and business journey in a reasonable length of podcast. But as it turned out, what came out of Tom during our interview ended up being so much better. At this point of Tom’s life I found him incredibly reflective on his experiences, with the benefit of years of hindsight and perspective.
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Building Cervelo
From The Top
The genesis of Cervelo started in 1995 when two young engineering students named Phil White and Gerard Vroomen met in the composites lab at McGill University in Canada. Over a span of 15 years they went from building a crazy aerodynamic time trial bike as a university project to creating one of the most disruptive and loved bike brands in the world.
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Building Zwift
From The Top
Indoor training has been around for longer than I can remember, but it was in 2014 when Zwift came along that it changed this market forever.
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Building Castelli
From The Top
You’ll be hard pressed to find a more iconic brand in cycling than Castelli. The company dates back to the late 1800’s.
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Building 'Life in the Peloton' with Mitch Docker
From The Top
When pro cyclist Mitch Docker announced his retirement I was in the middle of producing Christian Meier’s story, much of the background I got from Mitch’s podcast, Life in the Peloton. So it got me thinking about Life in the Peloton. Is it a business for Mitch? How did he start this? What makes him tick? Where might it go? Mitch is clearly a smart, talented and hard working guy, so why not document his story now at this point of his journey rather than 10 years from now?
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Building The Service Course
From The Top
If you follow professional cycling and are attracted to specialty coffee, beautiful custom bikes, and boutique travel, then there’s no doubt you haven’t already come across Christian and Amber Meier’s businesses. The couple from Canada embarked on a professional cycling career for Christian and settled in the once sleepy Catalan town of Girona. The two of them are the founders of La Fabrica, Espresso Mafia and Service Course which have now become institutions of Girona that people seek out.
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Building 7mesh
From The Top
7Mesh are an apparel brand based in Squamish, Canada who make top quality clothing made for the demands of mountain biking, gravel and road.
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Building Curve Cycling
From The Top
It all started in around 2010 when Curve’s earliest founder, Steve was working in a bike shop and got asked all the time for wheel upgrades. At that time the only thing available for after market carbon wheels were basically ENVE, Zipp, and a few others which were a major price leap from high end alloy wheels. Steve started asking himself why a more accessible carbon wheelset wasn’t available, so he did it himself.
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Building LIV/Giant Bicycles
From The Top
You could very well argue that Bonnie Tu is the most powerful woman in cycling, although she wouldn’t think of describing herself that way. She’s best known as the face of the LIV brand she created back in 2008, but more than that she’s the Chairman of the largest bike brand in the world: The Giant Bicycle Group. What does that mean? Quite simply – she runs the entire show.
info_outlineGetting into the cycling apparel business could now be one of the lowest barrier to entry segments in the industry. Anyone with an Instagram account and some design ability can directly access factories in Italy or China and create a clothing ‘brand’ these days, and it’s incredibly tough to cut through in this crowded market. That’s not to say some don’t break through and create legitimate and worthy businesses this way – I know firsthand a few who have. And this low barrier to entry has enabled some wonderful brands to get started and flourish. But because of this it is a crowded market now, and it’s tough to discern who are doing great work and innovating, and who are just pumping out disposable fashion.
Every once in a while however a new brand comes along with people from a track record of success, expertise and you just know they’ll be around for the long haul.
From the moment I first discovered 7mesh a few years ago I knew this was one of those brands in its infancy.
For those who don’t know, 7mesh are a apparel brand based in Squamish, Canada who make some top quality clothing made for the demands of mountain biking, gravel and road.
The three founders, Tyler Jordan, Ian Martin and Calum Davidson aren’t three random people who got together to do a passion project however. They were three early staff members and integral to the success of outdoor clothing juggernaut, Arc'teryx.
Tyler was the CEO, Ian was Design Director, and Calum was Director of Supply Chain – and all were (and still are) nuts for cycling. They were also great friends in their days at Arcteryx and were having fun, pushing boundaries, and getting shit done.
But as the saying goes, all good things come to and end and as the three oversaw tremendous growth in the business they all gave everything up to go off on their own and create something from scratch.
To tell the story of 7mesh, we need to get to know Tyler, Calum and Ian in their early days at Arctaryx …