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...

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. 

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.

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. In 2010 when a gaming software developer in Southern California named Jon Mayfield began tinkering with his kinetic trainer and finding ways for it to communicate with a virtual world he built, he had no idea how big this would become.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a more iconic brand in cycling than Castelli. The company dates back to the late 1800’s. There’s so much to Castelli’s checkered history but most recently an American by the name of Steve Smith came onto the scene in 2000. He had no Italian heritage, no real cycling industry experience, but he did have a love cycling. Steve is ultimately the man who turned Castelli around into what we know it as today.

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? 

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.

7Mesh are an apparel brand based in Squamish, Canada who make top quality clothing made for the demands of mountain biking, gravel and road. The three founders, Tyler Jordan, Ian Martin and Calum Davidson were three early staff members and integral to the success of Arc'teryx. Tyler Jordan was CEO, Ian Martin was VP of product, and Calum Davidson was head of Ops and were having fun and pushing boundaries. The three oversaw tremendous growth but gave everything up to create something new.

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.

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. This is the growth story of Bonnie Tu.

As we continue our theme of individual icons within the sport, this week we hear the story of Matthew Keenan - a man who is slowly but surely becoming the new voice of cycling, taking over the highest job in cycling commentary just three years ago when Matt and Robbie McEwen replaced Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett as the host announcers for the Tour de France.

This week we speak to Graham watson, the most prolific cycling photographer in perhaps the world. Like other pioneers of their  professions, some might argue that it was easy back in the day and there were more opportunities. But everything is obvious in hindsight, and as you’ll soon hear from Graham, it was anything but easy. I’m a big believer that you make your own luck to open the next door, and that’s precisely what Graham did over the 5 decades he covered the sport.

Over the next few episodes of From the Top I switch gears to speak to iconic individuals within the cycling industry to better understand how they got to where they are. First up, I speak to Phil Liggett about how he got his start in commentating, how he met Paul Sherwin, how he’s been doing since Paul’s untimely passing, his relationship/fallout with Lance Armstrong, and the cutthroat nature of his position at the top of his profession.