Overnight Success

The story of an unassuming American who brought Castelli back from the grave.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more iconic brand in cycling than Castelli. The company dates back to the late 1800s, to around the time of the first-ever documented bike race. 

Castelli is an Italian brand with a long, complicated history, but much of its recent success is due to an American by the name of Steve Smith, who came onto the scene in 2000. He had no Italian heritage, no real cycling industry experience, but he did have a love of cycling. By his own admission, he wasn’t an amazing cyclist – instead he veered towards technical innovation so he could stay competitive. 

Steve’s email signature says ‘Castelli Brand Manager’, but I always got the feeling from speaking with him over the years that he did far more than that. As I dug deeper into his story, I learned he’s part owner of the business, steers the ship, and is ultimately the man who turned Castelli around into what we know it as today.

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In this episode of From the Top, I speak to The Sufferfest founder David McQuillen about how he went from working in the Swiss Banking industry, to creating one of the largest indoor training platforms in his spare time and later selling the business to Wahoo Fitness.

I first met David back in 2010 at the Road World Championships in Geelong and we became good friends thereafter. We were both in similar start-up stages of our businesses and we had lots in common. When David moved to Melbourne we got together frequently to discuss business, cycling and the general landscape of both.

David is one of the most enthusiastic, humble, and clever people I’ve had the privilege of knowing and it’s been an absolute joy to watch his business flourish. As you’ll find out, even though The Sufferfest may have been a ‘happy accident’, none of the decisions he took on his successful journey have been by mistake.

This is David’s remarkable story of how he built The Sufferfest.

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So many of the businesses we’ve discovered in this show have been ‘happy accidents’ so to speak, and Scratch Labs embodies that very same organic build and hustling spirit. Founded by two longtime friends, Allan Lim and Ian McGregor as both were sidelined from the sport, they both described themselves as initially too ‘lazy’ to actually sell their ‘secret drink mix’ they were making for pro cycling teams at the time. But as one thing led to another, they found themselves in their kitchens making their products, mixing drink powders in paint shakers, and throwing pizza and beer parties with their friends to fulfil orders. 

In an absolutely crowded market of nutritional products, these two, with no business experience were able to work their way to become one of the biggest little brands in the sports nutrition world. 

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In this episode we speak to the three co-founders of apparel brand, 7mesh.

Getting 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 source directly from factories in Italy or China and create a clothing ‘brand’ these days.

That’s not to say some don’t break through and create legitimate and worthy businesses this way – I know a few first-hand who have. This low barrier to entry has enabled some wonderful brands to get started and flourish. But because of this it is now a crowded market, and it’s tough to discern who’s doing great work and innovating, and who’s just pumping out disposable fashion.

From the moment I first discovered 7mesh I knew this was going to be something different.

For those who don’t know, 7mesh is an apparel brand based in Squamish, Canada which makes top quality apparel made for the demands of mountain biking, gravel and road.

The three founders, Tyler Jordan (you’ll hear him often being referred to as TJ), Ian Martin and Calum Davidson aren’t three people who randomly got together to do a passion project. They were three early staff members and integral to the success of outdoor clothing juggernaut, Arcteryx.

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 an 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 Arcteryx …

Apidura is a brand you may not be familiar with if you haven’t ventured into the world of bikpacking, touring or adventure racing. They are pioneers in rackless bike bags category, and support the community of ultra cyclists and bike packers. They’re a brand at the heart of this rapidly growing community and are enabling a whole new wave of this type of cycling.

Tori Fahey is the founder of Apidura and never set out to create a business out of her homemade packs and bags. She did it to satisfy her own needs with how she needed to balance her hectic life by doing long rides, tours and adventures.

What I find inspiring about what Tori has done with Apidura is not necessarily the business she’s created and it’s quick rise (although that is pretty remarkable in its own right), but the foundation she’s build the company on, and the values she holds and follows through with. She’s been outspoken about consumerism and the culture of seasonal discounting. She is conscious about the footprint the business leaves on the environment. She focuses her resources on making their products better, rather than new colorways or seasonal changes. She made a deliberate choice at the start not to be a growth led business, but to be a product led. That’s one thing to say when you have a hobby business, but something completely different when you have employees, a supply chain, and a customer base who depend on you.

I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed brining it together.

Zipp is an indisputable icon in the wheel and component business and they have a long history of innovation. They were one of the very first brands who thought about wheels differently and pushed the envelope to bring performance wheels where they are today.

An engineer by the name of Leigh Sargent is the founder of Zipp way back in the late 80’s, and it’s a gentleman by the name of Andy Ording who was Leigh’s first employee. Ording bought the company outright in its early days, and built Zipp during its formative years. 

Zipp now belongs to SRAM and its family of products and continues its legacy of innovation, but the origins of this pioneering brand started over 30 years earlier.

Rocket Espresso is not a cycling brand per se, but it’s arguably the best-known coffee brand within the orbit of our own little cycling world. 

Most cyclists have an appreciation for the sort of beautiful, mechanical, craftsmanship that Rocket does so wonderfully. It’s easy to see why the brand connects so strongly with cyclists.

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 …

I hope you enjoy the tale of Andrew’s remarkable journey across the globe that lifted coffee machines to a whole new level.

SRAM is credited with having three co-founders, but Stan Day is the man who planted the seed. And you could very well argue he is the man where the brand’s culture and values stem from. At least that’s what I got out of speaking with him in this episode while listening to his polite, humble and understated approach when sharing his story.

SRAM all started with Stan taking on a triathlon challenge back in the 80’s and thinking that there has to be a better way than the current down-tube shifting method. Twist-shift was his answer and he was able to convince a few friends to leave their good jobs, move across the country and start a business in Chicago and sell their better way. But as successful as the company is now, it certainly didn’t start out that way. If it weren’t for one pivotal moment, SRAM might have been only a side-note in our cycling history books.

Josh Poertner isn’t your typical cycling industry personality. In fact, he’s not ‘typical’ of much at all. He’s one of those people that when you meet him, you’re taken back by a man who is filled with enthusiasm, curiosity, positive energy, and intelligence that really makes him stand out from most human beings.

These days, you may associate Josh’s name as the man who reinvented Silca, the Italian tyre pump brand founded over a hundred years ago. But as with most of these stories, it was far from a straight path, and anything but easy. He started out as a keen and talented bike racer, who later became a brilliant engineer who got his feet wet in motorsport and later went on to be an enormous influence in making the Zipp wheels the brand what it is today.

The story of how a humble man played a major part in disrupting the cycling industry.

Not only is Tom Ritchey one of the founding fathers of mountain biking, but he’s also a master frame and component builder, innovator, and entrepreneur.

Researching this episode and trying to put a timeline together to extract the major business milestones that Tom has been through was a bit of a daunting task. There’s so much there. He’s been in business for 50 years and as modest a business as he’s intentionally kept it, it hasn’t always been a straightforward journey.

So much of Tom’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 podcast of any reasonable length. But as it turned out, what came out of Tom during our interview ended up being so much better. At this point in Tom’s life I found him incredibly reflective on his experiences, with the benefit of years of hindsight and perspective.