Overnight Success

They seemed to arrive overnight: Chinese bike brands turning up in the WorldTour peloton, in your local shop, and all over your feed. But almost no one inside the industry thinks it was sudden at all. Most of the bikes we ride have been built in Asia for decades, so perhaps it was only a matter of time before those factories started putting their own names on the down tube. This episode digs into...

In episode one of this series — 'False Dawn' — we looked at the mistaken optimism the bike industry faced when the world opened up after the pandemic. The more you dig into this story, the clearer it becomes that the boom and bust was only the surface. Underneath it, something more fundamental had already changed. In this episode — which we're calling 'The Ground Shifted' — we hear from people who...

In our last Industry Special series, we asked how the bike industry got itself into such deep trouble. What we found was a supply chain riddled with problems, a leadership culture built on false optimism, and an industry that mistook a pandemic bump for a permanent new normal. They called it the bike gold rush. Sadly it came to an abrupt end.  Since that time, businesses have gone bankrupt. Shops...

In January 2025, I sat down with Rapha's newly appointed CEO, Fran Millar, after she'd been in the job for about three months. Founder and previous CEO Simon Mottram stepped away from the business in 2021 and hired William Kim as his successor. Kim was brought in as an outsider with impressive experience in luxury fashion and retail – Burberry, Gucci, Abercrombie & Fitch. Unfortunately he last...

In this episode we take a deep dive into Rose Bikes - a 120 year old bicycle brand that many of you may not have heard of, and that's about to change. Rose Bikes is a German  company that sells direct to consumer, similar to Canyon. Founded in 1907 as a small family workshop, it evolved into one of Europe’s early adopters of the D2C model.  Thank you to my colleague Suvi Loponen for doing this int...

In this episode, we are going deep inside the founding story of Cannondale, which has arguably been one of the most innovative bike companies in the world to this day. The founder who is the main character in this story is Joe Montgomery. But he wasn’t a hardcore cyclist as you might expect. He was an entrepreneur who liked building things, hired his customer, and figuring it out as he went. Sadly...

This episode's guest is Rachel Burnside, who is the creator and force behind Uplift, a mentoring and networking program she built from scratch to support women working in the cycling industry. Uplift started simply: connect women early in their careers with senior women who'd already navigated the road ahead. But it's grown into something much bigger - a global community with over a thousand women...

In this episode replay, I speak to Phil Liggett about how he got his start in commentating, how he met Paul Sherwen, how he’s been doing since Paul’s untimely passing, about his relationship with Lance Armstrong, and the cut-throat nature of his position at the top of his profession. Liggett is undeniably the most recognisable voice in cycling and his dulcet tones have brought the sport we all lov...

Mikel Delagrange is the reluctant face of Team AMANI. While he prefers the title of 'Head Cheerleader,' he was left to carry the torch after the project's founder, Sule Kangangi, tragically died in a high-speed crash in Vermont. Now leading the mission to dismantle the barriers facing African cyclists, Mikel oversees a unique ecosystem: From building a high-altitude training center in Kenya to the...

Last month, I traveled to the Great Karoo in South Africa for the inaugural Nedbank Gravel Burn. It is the latest brainchild of Kevin Vermaak, the man who built the legendary Cape Epic. I cannot overstate how spectacular the experience was for me. While the riding was incredibly challenging, the event's culture was the true standout. It was a rare leveling of the playing field: World Tour pros lik...

In this episode we speak to Graham Watson, perhaps the world's most prolific cycling photographer. Over five decades, Graham didn't just witness cycling history - he documented it. Some might say the pioneers had it easy, but as you'll hear, Graham's path was anything but. He made his own luck, opening doors through persistence and talent. And whoever said "nice guys finish last" never met Graham....

In 1999, Joe Friel was drowning in faxes. The legendary cycling coach, later author of The Cyclist’s Training Bible , had 72 clients sending training data every Monday. His desk was buried under paper. His son Dirk, then racing in Belgium, figured there had to be a better way. Over beers at The George in Vail, Dirk convinced his best man—and the only web developer he knew—Gear Fisher, to build a s...

Charlie Stewart, Rupert Hartley, and Jack Howker started the British apparel brand Albion nearly a decade ago. It began not in a boardroom, but in the wild weather of Wales.  I first met founders Charlie and Rupert by chance on the roads of Mallorca, before they’d launched a single product. Years later, Albion has grown into a respected name in the ultra-distance and adventure cycling scene. This...

Over the weekend The Service Course announced its closure. This is a re-play of the episode we previously did that talks about its origin story. We will aim to do a follow-up when the time is right. --- If you follow professional cycling and are attracted to specialty coffee, beautiful custom bikes, and boutique travel, then you’ve surely come across Christian and Amber Meier’s businesses. The cou...

In this episode of Overnight Success we hear the story of cycling commentator Matthew Keenan. 

The Pro's Closet represents a quintessential modern startup journey, evolving from a professional mountain biker's eBay side hustle into America's largest certified pre-owned bicycle marketplace. The company's trajectory mirrors both the opportunities and challenges of the pandemic era, riding high on $90 million in funding before facing the harsh realities of market volatility. The Pro's Closet e...

Rapha recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary and for the majority of that time it was the darling brand of cycling. Everything Rapha touched turned to gold. Founder Simon Mottram saw cycling apparel differently than anyone else and created an entirely new market for people who connected with his vision. In 2017, RZC , the Walton brothers’ investment arm, bought a majority stake in Rapha. Thin...

Welcome to this special episode where we dive deep into one of cycling's oldest, most fascinating, and perhaps largely unknown stories - how a single French family, best known as their business entity the Amaury Sporting Organisation or ASO, came to control the Tour de France, the world's most famous bicycle race. Because, if you recall, they didn’t invent the TdF. A little french newspaper called...

The Cape Epic is widely regarded as the crown jewel in mountain bike stage racing. Many notable legends of the sport have called it the Tour de France of mountain biking. So how did Kevin Vermaak, a 30-year-old man new to mountain biking create a cultural phenomenon in the MTB world in the far away land of South Africa? This is his remarkable story... If you like this podcast and want to hear more...

You could 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 for being the face of the Liv brand she created back in 2008, but more than that she’s chairperson of the largest bike brand in the world: the Giant Bicycle Group. What does that mean? Quite simply, she runs the entire company. Giant Bicycles is a US$2....

In recent years Rapha has been one of the most innovative, aspirational and disruptive businesses in cycling and Simon Mottram is the mastermind behind the brand. He took the company from a single idea, with the premise of how he felt about road cycling and how he wanted it portrayed. From a single jersey that wasn’t even ready in time for the company launch during in 2004, he build Rapha into the...

Indoor training has been around for longer than I can remember, but when Zwift came along in 2014 it changed the market forever. The company came into the world with bold ambitions, reimagined the space and what it could become, and has grown the market to a size that nobody could have imagined. Some of the earliest pioneers in the indoor virtual world space were the likes of Computrainer and Tacx...

To most of us it would seem inconceivable to build one of the biggest bike brands in the world from absolutely nothing. Think of the capital it would require, the global distribution network, complex supply chains, logistics, manufacturing, sales, design … It’s a daunting endeavour and hard to imagine where you’d even begin. Well, it didn’t start with all of those elements in mind. Roman Arnold, C...

Many would argue that Cervélo is one of the most innovative bike brands in the cycling industry. Back in the 1990s when they first started, almost everyone else was focusing on lightweight bikes. Cervélo, meanwhile, was busy pioneering bicycle aerodynamics. I’ve ask engineers at various bike companies which brand impresses them most with regards to engineering and innovation, and overwhelmingly I...

For many years, bike brands have been known to collaborate with automobile and Formula 1 companies in order to align themselves with their halo of high level performance, innovation and technology. But factor bikes started in reverse to that. Factor might seem like a relative newcomer in the market, and that's partially true. It's been a mere eight years since their bikes became widely available,...