RetailCraft 54: "You just go faster" - in conversation with Joel Natale, Chief Commercial Officer, Rapha

Show Notes

You Just Go Faster: Cycling, Community and Commerce with Rapha's CCO

This episode of RetailCraft takes us inside premium cycling brand Rapha, our host Ian Jindal chats with Joel Natale, Chief Commercial Officer, at Rapha's London headquarters. Their conversation explores how this 20-year-old brand transformed cycling culture, built a powerful community, and continues to balance premium positioning with growth.

 

[00:00:00] Introduction to Rapha and Joel's Role

[00:01:00] "Changed The Sport": Rapha's Market Impact

[00:06:52] "More Than Just Shops": The Clubhouse Concept

[00:11:16] "Suffering Together": The Community Philosophy

[00:15:50] "The Rapha Cycling Club": 10 Years of RCC Membership

[00:18:23] "Product Longevity": Sustainability and Repairs

[00:23:57] "I Won't Be A Lifer": Joel's Cycling Industry Journey

[00:27:19] "Incredibly Lucky": From Brompton to Rapha

[00:30:37] "A Relentless Desire to Understand the Customer": Brand Leadership

[00:34:27] "You Just Go Faster": Rapha's Future Direction

Rapha's Origins and Market Position

Joel introduces Rapha as a 20-year-old cycling brand founded by Simon Mottram in 2004 that "really changed the sport" and how people engage with cycling. Rapha entered a market divided between established performance brands and cheaper, poorly fitting products, with Mottram's vision to create "a more discerning and thoughtful product brand" engaged with cycling culture.

Rapha revolutionized the industry with its bold pricing strategy, setting retail prices approximately three times the market average. This approach initially shocked consumers but transformed industry standards, with other brands taking nearly five years to realize they could also aim for premium price points.

Though the brand has expanded its range to serve diverse cyclists across price points and terrains, Rapha remains firmly positioned as a premium brand sitting "top halfway to the top" of the market.

Clubhouses: More Than Just Shops

One of Rapha's most distinctive innovations has been its clubhouses. These aren't simply retail spaces but community hubs where cyclists engage with the brand and each other. When Rapha introduced this concept around 2010-2012, cycling-focused cafés where riders could bring their bikes inside was revolutionary.

The clubhouses serve multiple purposes beyond retail. As Joel explains, "On a Sunday afternoon, you give people a space to watch races. On a Wednesday morning, you give them a space to go after they've trained." This community-building approach reflects Rapha's broader mission to grow the sport rather than just sell products.

Rapha strategically locates its clubhouses in major global cities and "culturally important cycling locations" such as Mallorca and Boulder, Colorado—choices that might not be obvious from pure data analysis but make sense for a brand deeply connected to cycling culture.

The Rapha Cycling Club (RCC)

The Rapha Cycling Club celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2024. Unlike conventional loyalty programs focused on discounts, RCC was built around creating an actual cycling club where "people might meet and ride together, race together."

RCC offers tangible benefits including half-price coffee at clubhouses, organized rides, bike hire, and access to exclusive club kit at more accessible price points. While Joel acknowledges that the club "peaked in COVID" and needs reinvigoration, he emphasizes that for many members—especially those living near clubhouses—the benefits and community connections remain valuable.

Sustainability and Product Longevity

Cycling inherently offers sustainability advantages as an environmentally friendly transportation option. Rapha's focus on high-quality products naturally aligns with sustainability principles, with Joel mentioning he still owns and uses a Rapha jersey from 2008—illustrating the brand's commitment to durability.

The company maintains repair services in the US, UK, and Europe, reflecting its commitment to product longevity. Beyond repairs, Rapha has expanded its sustainability efforts to include carbon emissions management and increased use of "environmentally preferred materials," while acknowledging the challenges specific to cycling apparel, which often uses multiple materials for performance requirements.

Industry Passion and Future Direction

Joel's career has been entirely within the cycling industry, beginning part-time at Evans Cycles while at university before joining their purchasing department after graduation. Despite initially thinking "I won't be a lifer," he's remained in the cycling business for 20 years.

Joel reflects on the special bonds formed in cycling retail: "When you do cycling retail, you make really close friends because you've already passed the bar of 'we're all cyclists'." Before joining Rapha, Joel worked at Brompton, describing himself as "incredibly lucky to work for both brands."

When asked about skills needed for success in brand-led businesses, Joel emphasizes "a relentless desire to understand the customer." He notes that while being passionate about your niche is essential, professionals also need to "be one step back" to avoid confusing personal preferences with broader customer needs.

The podcast concludes with Joel discussing Rapha's future under new CEO Fran Miller (sister of former professional cyclist David Millar), who recently joined from Belstaff. Rather than focusing on short-term fixes, they're taking a longer view: "We're going to look at a three to four year horizon to rebuild this place," supported by patient ownership that allows for long-term planning.

About Our Guest

Joel Natale is Chief Commercial Officer at Rapha, overseeing product strategy, merchandising, supply chain, and e-commerce operations. His 20-year career in the cycling industry includes prior roles at Evans Cycles and Brompton, bringing both personal passion and professional expertise to his work at this premium global cycling brand.

 

--  Run time: 38 minutes

INFORMATION:

[ 🖥️ ]

Rapha - https://rapha.cc

 

[ 👨‍👧 ]

Joel Natale: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-natale/ 

Ian Jindal: www.linkedin.com/in/ianjindal/ 

 

[ 📷 ] (c) Ian Jindal / www.instagram.com/ianjindal

 

 

Creators and Guests

Host

Ian Jindal

Founder of RetailX and CustomerX

What is RetailCraft - digital retail, ecommerce and brands - Retail Podcast?

Multichannel retail, ecommerce and digital business - interviews, analysis and discussion with Ian Jindal and InternetRetailing

Okay then, so let's kick off. So, dear listener, welcome.

I was going to say welcome back to the studio, but we are today at Rafa HQ.

Some of you will now be shuddering with delight as Rafa customer addicts.

Some of you may find it a new brand, but either way, to demystify and give us

insight, it's a great pleasure to be here with Joel. So Joel,

Chief Commercial Officer of RAFA, welcome.

Tell us a bit about RAFA and a bit about your role as Chief Commercial Officer.

Yeah, so for anyone who doesn't know, RAFA is a 20-year-old this year cycling

brand started by Simon Mottram in 2004.

Sort of widely considered to have really changed the sport,

changed the way people engage with the sport

obviously a kind of glory time for british

cycling as well or certainly alongside that glory

of british cycling it's a global brand available all over the world with stores

or clubhouses as we call them several different countries yeah and then my role

as chief commercial officer i i'm very lucky to be able to work on some of the

product and product strategy,

I work with the merchandising and supply chain teams and then across the website

so digital product and e-commerce.

Great, well loads of avenues to go but first off let's try and anchor Rafa in the cycling landscape.

So with cycling it's such a broad brush because most people can cycle,

most people have cycled but.

Raffa sort of entered the market where cycling was moving from being bearded

old guys in cagoules doing tours and or drug-fueled Tour de France superhumans.

There was this moment where, for an urban affluent performance-focused cyclist,

this authentic brand came from nowhere and it really did change the face of cycling.

So if you were just landing today or you're a Gen Z-er getting interested in

cycling, where does the RAFA brand and offering sit in this broad cycling landscape?

Yeah, I mean, I think to answer that question, you kind of need to go back to the start as well.

And yeah, you've covered it in the sense of what the sport looked like,

but also in terms of what the market looked like at that time,

you had some very technical brands that were pushing forward with real performance

fabrics or fits or whatever. You go back to 2004.

I mean, nothing like where we are today.

But the brands existed, you know, and there were brands that had been around

already for a generation at that time.

And then beyond that, basically, everything was pretty cheap for the most part.

Polyfitting and all that sort of stuff. and Simon and Simon,

felt that there was a place for a more discerning and

more thoughtful product and brand

something that would tell the story that would engage in cycling

culture and he blew it away

by setting an rrp that was like three

times the average at the time yes it was

nuts you might remember i certainly remember the first time

you heard about how much a rafa jersey costs i remember

the conversations with my wife that started

ended with how much so you know i've lived

through that yeah right and then and in

that you know it probably took five years

for most of our brands to realize that they could sell all

that they should sell or aim to sell a product

that could be justified at those higher price points

and then yeah i mean.

Raf has been on a really long journey of like i

said you know it's changed the way people consume the

sport it's changed the stories that people paid attention

to and the depth and the detail and then over more recent

years the sport has you know continued to evolve

to a place where you've got you can

go to silver stone and spend a thousand pounds on a

pair of aero socks right you know the one end

of the really extreme of the sport and you've

got kind of very very stylish brands that

have maybe picked up from what learned

from what rafa did and trying to take that on in a in

their own way you've still got a kind of plethora

of kind of core brands and i think you know one of the areas that rafa's found

hard over recent years but was a probably a huge benefit through like the peak

covid time is rafa has you know rafa has extended its range to be able to cope

with a broader church of cyclists,

whether that's price point,

whether that's function, whether that's terrain.

Now, that works really well when the market's growing because it gives you lots

more spaces to get into a growing market.

Does have the risk of you standing for

something less defined at a point when

that market starts to contract and it doesn't

stop us still being a great and you know

and large brand at all but it definitely means that

your positioning is hard to explain all that

being said is probably a very long way of saying we're still

a premium brand you know like you're still from the

top or from halfway to the top

i would guess of like the the positioning

and we believe in the quality of our products and in the

main we're direct consuming that allows us to create great products for customers

and feedback very quickly to get iterated i mean it's interesting you know we've

we started talking about the customers one of the things that's always interested

me about the brand is that connection with the customer.

And so a lot of brands might come technology first.

You know, oh, I've got this new breathable fabric. What can I do with it?

Where there's always been this focus on, you could sort of imagine the Rafa

customer dressed in Rafa because you felt this visceral connection with them,

which you see, I think, in two ways. One is with the clubhouses.

You're not a direct-to-customer selling brand.

Customers in your store doing things so let's talk

about those in a second but i think there's also been

you know with this this customer connection

a level of fun and we're

cycling with you so whether it's doing the randonnets whether

it's you're sponsoring women cycling and

early pioneer there some of those nutty cycle across

america gravel rides all of that

allied to a lot of video work to bring that to life

so it seems to me as if you're you know your customer and

you're with them this lever engagement and also

they're with you in the stores so maybe just

pick up on this clubhouse idea like they're not your shops or

your clubhouse i want to be sarcastic and say

it's just a shop but it's not just a shop tell us about the clubhouse yeah i

mean i think the clubhouse again they're really amazing thing to go back to

because anyone who's into cycling these days is probably used to a cafe that

they can ride their bike into and that maybe has some cycling paraphernalia on the walls.

But in 2010, 11, 12, this was not the norm, right? This is a.

As with many things about cycling in cafes permanent right everyone

has always met whether it's cafe paradu in

christopher palace or whatever people have always met somewhere that's right

and and hung their bikes on the fence and gone

for a ride right that's that's off three double espresso

yeah right that's cycling immortal right like

always always happened but obviously this brand

was trying to bring that to a new generation of time

or make it more accessible make it

more useful like in sense of like how many places in soho

can you cycle and you're not

going to hang your bike on the fence anymore right so you so being

able to take it inside is suddenly a real

value add and we still see that lots of people will

have ridden around regius park and then they will come

to the clubhouse and have a coffee or maybe vice versa and

that's really been the logic of those stores

around the world and it's also the brand was never purely

about trying to sell product its purpose for

15 years was to try and grow the spore and that's how we're doing that you know

you get on a sunday afternoon you give people a space to watch races on a wednesday

morning give them a space to go after they've trained and as part of that the

theory is they will want to shop with you right and also they've got to wear their kit out somehow.

So they can buy some more yeah well and helping

people ride yeah you mentioned the rides that the brand has put

on for a long time and even before it kind of put

on rides more formally it would have appeared at people's

rides it did kind of guerrilla marketing at taps to

tour and this sort of stuff you know it was always

trying to engage with people doing the sport

because it wasn't it's a lifestyle sport like

it takes over your life i guess might be enough way of putting it

but but it is something that yeah

you can really engage with and so they were telling

these stories telling these links and really trying to

create a community as well and i think what was nice about that

is it was in retail uh we have a large number of uh of cyclists but some of

the one day events which would be teams of four where it was the slowest person's

time but counted not the fastest just these nice sort of community activities

but i mean thinking about your your clubhouses.

You know, I'd encourage everyone in the UK to visit your London one,

but I can remember visiting San Francisco and doing a free bike hire where I

was, I'd pre-booked obviously, but I was handed this enormously expensive bike.

To go riding for the day and the only difficulty was taking

my own pedals which was i never understood why but getting

those through customs into san francisco airport is

quite funny so you'd have the the riding but also

then taking that onto things like strava so the

community there's a very active rafa club on

on strava this idea that somehow the

interest and joint activity brings people together

oh yeah and i mean we track

the data of the number of people who join rides

in our various clubhouses around the world right it's

like it's yeah as you said i mean it's not

as specific as wearing out kit but it is the more

people ride the more they enjoy the sport the more

they'll tell their friends the more they'll believe in.

This brand the more they'll come back and it's been

really interesting we've obviously had fairly major change here

recently you know and we with fran our new ceo she's

brought in pros to come and talk to us and what's

fascinating when you listen to those pros is what they

tell you about what was important to them about being a pro and it's kind of

like suffering together yes one of the things they

walk away from the sport going that's

the thing that i remember the most you know and the connection

i made with someone so yes to what you mentioned about

the four-person ride and it's the time of

the slowest rider well what you go through on

that is that shared experience that you probably never

forget you mentioned to me earlier your ride in iceland

you know you don't you don't forget these things you forget them even less if

they're shared yes which is a big part of the community of the sport right and

that we can all go through that stuff and we all suffer david miller suffers

taylor gave your heart suffers and yeah your eyes suffer you know the famous.

Doesn't get any easier you just go faster.

Exactly. And there is a point where you have to have a few more muscles when you run out of gears.

So let's maybe just go back to the clubhouses because...

You know we've seen your lovely website we've seen the product but the clubhouses

are sort of quite different in the retail world these are popping up in a number

of cities so i've visited hong kong,

new york san francisco london i think a new one in paris no we haven't gone in paris why not.

Actually tell me where you put them and why yeah

well historically they've ended up so originally

they went into the brightest and

best cities in the world right it's really obvious london new york

tokyo la the list of places that you would just really naturally

put them then we can have a combination of

like obviously as a kind of e-commerce site you

can actually see where people are shopping your brand so

you can look at you could create a list of places based

off of like oh well that place is

performing really well right brand so maybe we should

look at that and but also beyond that

you have there's the combination of the two things

work together right when you put a store in a location we grow

our e-commerce sales so but actually we

also have a lot in like culturally important cycling locations

so there's one in palmer in mallorca we're in boulder in

colorado we're in places where you

might not if you were doing it on purely financial

grounds at least just looking at you did

your data analysis of how many people live in that area you're not

going to put it in mallorca but actually when you think about the.

People who go there with their bikes yes exactly it's very clear

and if you go back to bike hire bike hire suddenly makes even more sense

for rcc members in a place

like mallorca suddenly this whole thing starts to come

together and really the flywheel kicks off and

so there's a real combination of like the the

two in our in our portfolio of

stores and some will move some places have become cycling hubs

that weren't five years ago and yeah there's

paris on the map well of course it should be on the map there's zurich or

vienna or some other places would be

on the map and we're you know in traditional cycling

cities amsterdam copenhagen but we're not in oslo like

this and we don't all right well maybe

we should get our listener to volunteer on dates available to

come for the grand paris opening now we

talked about rcc membership it would be remiss of us to skip over that so as

erst one member 7611 the tell us a bit about where membership fits in so it's

a little bit more than give us your email we'll spam you every friday.

It's a paid membership scheme and in

return again there aren't many

benefits other than be able to buy even better kit

but maybe just tell me about how you see the membership scheme

and how it fits in overall how important it

is to the the commerce yeah so rcc raffa

cycling club launched in 2015 so it celebrates

its 10th anniversary next year and you

know i think it's an incredible example

of understanding the sport so most.

People would create a inverted

commerce loyalty scheme and this would be about

discounts or about access to product or

about you know special releases or

whatever and simon built something in the team built

something that was really grounded in cycling clubs

creating a true rafa cycling club a community where

people might meet and ride together race together it does

have specific benefits in the sense of you get

half price coffee if you go to a clubhouse you are

allowed to there's little rides put on for you you have

bike hire benefits that you talked about you get

free express delivery so it does have

like and club kit don't forget yeah access to club

kit which is priced in a way that you

don't get a discount on that but it's priced lower than obviously kits

you kind of you have like a full price offer which

is lower and yeah so it's kind of

we're definitely working on it's a 10 year old club and how do we improve the

proposition of the club and move it forward but i think it's also a tremendous

you know it's been a tremendous success it peaked in covid as did the brand and,

lots of other measures of cycling.

And so we are ardently aware that we need to kind of reinvigorate the club.

But at its core, it's probably got a pretty solid proposition for a lot of people.

I mean, if you live near a clubhouse, then it makes, you know,

half-price coffee and free express.

If you're riding regularly and you want to join RCC Rides, and you travel once

a year and you want to take, you want to pick up one of the amazing bikes that we allow you to hire.

It pays for itself. But I think for me, what's interesting is that re-anchoring of a membership.

It's all about doing if you participate and

you attend the clubhouse and all these

this is a physical real action it's

not just a loyalty scheme vouchers and

points so i think that working together is really important one

of the topic i wanted to pick up on before you loop back

to you sustainability so when

i remember being in a change room once and squeezing

myself into a garment there's a

sign on the wall saying that if through cycling

you lose weight the garment becomes too big then

you get 50% off the smaller size and I'm

still trying to get to a point where I

can take you up on that but next to it then there was you know

a pair of bibs with holes in because someone would come off and it

was like if you come off we'll fix it free or give you

a replace or something so there's always been this idea that you stand

behind the kit but the importance

of sustainable products has really

accelerated so i was at makers united in amsterdam

last year and alongside all

the premium brands there was raffa kit being expertly

fixed by people so maybe just tell us

how sustainability is getting woven

into the brand offering and how important

that is yeah i mean i think like you know

at its core cycling does something which not that.

Many sports can do which is you you know you can

if you're a conscious consumer be more environmentally

friendly cycling you can.

Play in golf assuming that you were going to drive

to that golf course yeah so it you can

you know it can do stuff which other sports

can't and then what that does is attracts lots

of people who care maybe more

about or at least care in equal

measure about their impacts as well as the

sport that they do you know and lots of people it's an adventurous

holiday pursue or a way of saving money to commute

or all those kind of things so that's kind of deep in the brand and then that

lines up really well with the quality which has kind of always been central

to the brand and so yeah I've got a jersey from 2008 which I could still pull

on and oh you're showing off yeah now I've got a.

The colors faded a bit and Simon did want software to replace it

but I thought it had too many memories exactly the memory is

important yeah but yeah so you certainly have

a situation where the kit has always really lasted

a long time and then yeah I

mean before sustainability we did repair so you know

before sustainability was a thing we were focused on high quality kit that would

last a long time and then combining that with repair and we have a pair of yeah

Chris rooms bib shorts that were repaired post tour to france and it's always

been a factor and it still is like we have repair sets in the us and the uk

and in europe the one you mentioned it i'm stan.

Where we will send people's kit to be repaired because this

is premium expensive kit and if uh you

know if a small stitch line comes loose then it's a

shame to exactly absolutely and then

yeah as we've gone on it's become more important

to obviously our own impact on

the environment be that through carbon emissions or

when you're brand like ours well you'll have you know fairly significant emissions

when it comes to logistics but actually

most of your emissions are probably further upstream so we you

know we look at our scope three carbon emissions

we try to work on how we can reduce those try to work with our

factories on what we can do we've had a big

push on what internally we call environmentally

preferred materials and to try and make them feature across as much of

the range as possible we release an

impact report annually so we are conscious of our impact and it's and for any

brand that's trying to sell product there's that kind of push pull of like you

need to try and sell enough of it to keep your business going and you don't

want people to buy so much of it that you are a mass polluter or all that sort of thing and.

I think cycling has some real challenges in the sense like just the materials

like they tend to be made out of multiple materials because you're looking for

stretch and fit and water resistance.

Also, that makes the material incredibly hard to recycle.

They're very expensive to produce. You've got chamois that are made out of foam.

You'd be amazed how much waste there is in this chamois.

So, we know what problems that if we go beyond...

Environmental imperatives we know what the problems are which

we need to try and solve yeah the whether they impact

the average consumer that's always the difficult bit but

we know they are part of our impact on the

planet good well the as you're

talking i was thinking about the the long stretch

of continual small improvements and how they

add up over time but also made me remember that

when we look at your cv you have

spent a lifetime dedicated to two-wheeled

retail so maybe just draw for

people who can't get their thumbs to linkedin just now your career from evans

brompton and now and now rafa what was the line 30 just say i'm only going to

work for bike companies whatever happens or was it accidental it's funny actually

because it was kind of the opposite.

So I, while I was studying, I worked in an Evans Cycles part-time.

I was actually very lucky.

Yeah, I was very lucky that like in my first week at, actually the first uni

that I went to and I left, but in my first week at first uni in the basement

of my halls opened an Evans Cycles, which is one that's now shot in Hoban.

And I got a job there and I'd been

a super keen cyclist all through my teens and i

worked at evans throughout four years at university and then

asked them if they had a better job because i didn't have any idea what

i wanted to do and and this is

because you initially started off studying philosophy of

course so no one can expect you to know what you want to do because

is that even a question well yeah exactly which

is why after a year i gave up philosophy because if you're still worrying about

the question after 12 months it's probably time to find something more practical

to do yes then i was studying physics and then yeah i was incredibly lucky really

that the job that they had was a job that i guess required numeracy that was

in the purchasing department and i did my last exam on the.

And then the point on will I commit to two wheels is I remember going to a show

and people saying to me after I'd been working there three months and they were

like, oh, you'll be a lifer now, you're a lifer now.

And they made it sound like it was something really bad. And I remember walking

away from that show thinking, I won't be a lifer. I won't be a lifer.

20 years later. 20 years later, here I am.

But I think, you know, you mentioned how cycling brings together lots of people

who you know through retail.

But my amazing experience was like when you

do cycling retail you make really close

friends because you've already passed the bar of we're

all cyclists and then you can go to the people you have

that even deeper connection with and so it became

and i guess at heart i yes

we it costs some

energy and some environmental impact to produce but fundamentally what

we're doing used well has a positive impact on on the environment and on someone's

health and on the long term i mean i always enjoyed it right i've learned bikes

for it's i learned to ride and so yeah

those things combined that's very serendipitous but you started off in a,

a junior role, rose to the ranks, then moved to Brompton.

And we interviewed Brompton on the podcast back in January. We talked to the

US team in particular about Brompton Junction.

So that sort of clubby,

more than just a shop approach has a parallel with your clubhouses,

except it seems to be more about connecting the urban cyclists rather than,

you know, them being about performance and riding

together afterwards it's kind of a a similar but

different approach so to what extent would you

draw a comparison or difference between what are

basically two strong british brands led

by charismatic you know quality focused

leaders you know so that move from brompton

to rafa where was the difference where are the similarities

oh i mean it's i mean.

I've been incredibly lucky to work for both brands right and but

it is quite a double actually it's got to be said yeah there's a

few people i've dragged over since and a couple of people

who went the other way maybe to get away but it was very

interesting to what you mentioned charismatic so it was very interesting talking

to will bobber adams when i was leaving brompton.

And a conversation i was having with him i was like going from

a product with a real point of difference and

i you know Brompton for anyone is actually unique it's

it is the best right and as a business it's

mind-blowing because you go into a factory and tubes

come in one end and bikes like so the other yeah that

factory's in London and it's just can't comprehend

it and that and that's a whole that is a village creating these

bikes it's an amazing amazing place to work and

so lucky to have been able to work on that and some

really exciting stuff during my time there and then yeah you

move to a brand like rafa which it you know

it has a heart and soul which is different but you

have to be interested enough to figure that out

and otherwise if

you stood back and you just uh how much or whatever

it's cycling kit right and to

me that was i love this brand as

well i've been a customer of this brand for a long time they

definitely changed my relationship with

cycling and so the chance

to come here and try and help

try and get it to you know back to kind of the real peak of the market was easily

something that you know really excited me and at times you know it's scary and

challenging so let's let's look forward and let's look at that because, you know.

There's too much stuff in the world.

Not enough attention, not enough money.

So as you look to the future with a brand like Rafa, but there are others like it.

In terms of integrity, product history, and so on.

If you were hiring or talking to people who wanted to get into a similar brand-led

business, what are the important skills needed in order to,

get that balance between absolute integrity with no growth,

talking to the same people, and then the whole stuff, oh, we put one on every high street, you know,

PE-fueled explosion, which ultimately

leads to dilution and so on so somewhere in

that super happy but small to temporarily happy

what are the skills needed to navigate

and you know while you're thinking give you a chance you we've seen this

with great brands you know it's a sweaty

betting on the one hand you know owner founder

real points of difference how do these

brands grow so if you step out of yourself you're talking

to a young person arriving post philosophy physics

degree what are the characteristics that are

needed in order for the brand to get

and then maintain its place i think you know you particularly in an enthusiast

brand like this you've got to have a relentless desire to understand the customer

and i remember talking to simon in 2015 or something

and he was explaining to me you know i was at evans at the time and we were kind of comparing.

Experiences and saying how like evans at the time actually surprised people

how into cycling the head office was so you'd arrive and people would maybe

come with an image that evans was like a big box and they wouldn't really be

into cycling they would arrive and there'd be bikes everywhere,

people would be sat in the cycling kit and they'd be running at lunchtime and

you know it was really there were a lot of very very key and also last century

down in waterloo at the fw evans.

People actually made the bikes there and that

you know that was a real point of competitive difference

then yeah 100 yeah and they

yeah so 100 for evans yeah

and i think i mean actually and like if if i

step back slightly what i learned at evans was i

had a chip on my shoulder when i started there and then i had

this experience of like going to canada and working in a small store

that was like my dream kind of shop at a coffee shop in here it finished at

the door it was you know did everything but i kept turning people away because

we didn't have their products and this light bulb went off that was ah i'm not

an evan cycles customer but for its customers yes It's when cycles is amazing.

So that knowledge of the customer.

Yeah, knowledge of the customer. And then when you come here and to go back

to the conversation I was referencing with Simon, he was sort of saying,

well, this brand Rafa needs to always be more cycling than his customers.

And I think at some point.

Probably became a ring around the neck because you

got to a point where the stories were so niche

because you were trying to continue you know they were

at like phd in 1950 cycling and

the reality is that most of the customers would have.

Been happy with something at a much lighter level than.

That so so there's an element of like how far.

Can you take that but there's certainly you'll only

create great products you'll only create a great experience because

in fundamentally it isn't about the product you'll only create a

great experience whether that's in the purchase journey whether that's in

riding it whether that's in the community whether that's in riding

or the coffee shop if you really get what

it is that people love about your niche

now i'm lucky this is my niche and this is

our sport and this is something that lots of people do

and i'm lucky to be able to do that i think

to be able to do it well that's why i referenced the

canadian story to be able to do well you do have to be a step one

step back because you know you might be

the customer you might need to think like a customer but you also need to challenge yourself

and check whether you are you still are the

customer yeah exactly and you won't always be

in because you'll have your own quirks and so you

need to be able to do both those things but if you don't

have the hunger and the interest then you're never

going to create anything amazing because you won't be

able to go to that depth that the

new to or even the experienced customer just

wouldn't have done and you have to you

have to be able to provide that surprise that reward

for the person who loves more great

well look time's nearly up even a

day job to get back to so thanks for taking the time but as

we uh sort of pack up anything you're thinking thank

god Ian's leaving because I can crack on with interesting project.

X or y what's exciting you as you you know

head off yeah I mean what a.

Time to be here really because Franz Fran Miller has

just joined us our new CEO from Bellstaff from Bellstaff

and previously time with team Ineos and team Sky so

cycling for him through obviously her brother was david miller

so she's oh i didn't know that yeah yeah

so she's got oh my god autograph time

needed so it's it's

incredible right and the brand's taken a

few punches over the last few years definitely but

also some of that's from lookalike brands who've learned from what you've done

and seen that power of you know the sort of upper end of cycling you know activity

yeah yeah yeah a hundred percent yeah and and did you keep innovating right

did you keep pushing on so they couldn't catch you,

So, it's a really exciting time. It's very early days in terms of what that

will mean for strategy, for product, for experience.

But that's what we're working on. We're working at a really high pace.

Anyone who's worked a friend seems to be fully aware of the pace that you end up going.

Um and so that means you know every day we're trying to answer kind of big decisions

about what we should be doing next or maybe spending the time to research and understand a bit more.

Yeah and then i mean it's you know bell staff was a for her you know it's an

incomparable brand it's 100 years old it's motorcycling it's but it's a very

comparable brand it's a british,

so i mean they are heritage i don't think we are heritage but we're but it's

also interesting i'm I'm just going to segue to their New York meatpacking store,

which was two years ago one of my top US store choices because they're this

amazing set of the store, this guy called Raphael, who would customize, age, repair.

It was this sort of tailoring concierge service, but in full sight of the customer,

conversation, Q&A, the whole thing.

It was both theater and real at

the same time so there was a time when you know belsoff was

really leaning into these are

important garments for people who love them yeah yeah exactly right and it's

like she gets she gets brands and she gets spirit and she's deep on the customer

right and so that's a great time to be here because we're not talking about

how we're going to eke out or of a point, a margin, all that sort of things.

Those things come, but they come when you do a great job. So.

Yeah, I mean, it might be all change and no change. We'll see, you know, like.

That sounds like you're volunteering to come back on another podcast next year

and tell us what happened. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, maybe.

I mean, actually, the conversations that we've had are over trying to look further

forward than that because I think so often in retail, it's easy.

The cycle. I've got to fix it next year. here, I've got 12 months to fix this

thing. We're very lucky.

We've got owners who have been very patient with this brand and,

you know, they want to get it right.

And so we're going to look three to four year strategy to rebuild this place.

So it might be, I'm a bit older and grayer the next time we speak, but yeah.

It's fine. This is why we don't do video podcasts because, you know,

for the listener, we're all handsome and young.

Well Joel on that note of happy youth and good looks thank you so much for taking

the time to join us today thank you very much Ian.