Overnight Success
A podcast about the founders, the innovators, and the remarkable people in the cycling industry and the stories about the icons they've created. Escape Collective is member-funded. If you like this podcast please consider supporting us by becoming a member.
Episodes
Industry Special EP3: The Rise of the Chinese Brands
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 di
Industry Special EP2: The Ground Shifted
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 peo
Industry Special EP1: The False Dawn
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
Checking in with Rapha's Fran Millar: 18 months in, the hard part is just beginning
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. Unfortunatel
Building Rose Bikes
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
Building Cannondale
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 wen
Uplift - The Woman Lifting Women in the Bike Industry
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 thousa
The remarkable life of Phil Liggett (replay)
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
Building Team AMANI
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 Ken
Building Gravel Burn
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
The life and story of cycling photographer, Graham Watson (replay)
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 me
Building TrainingPeaks
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 bu
Building Albion
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 scen
Building The Service Course (replay)
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.
How Matt Keenan Found His Voice in Cycling (replay)
In this episode of Overnight Success we hear the story of cycling commentator Matthew Keenan.
What happened at The Pro's Closet?
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
Fran Millar’s vision for Rapha’s future
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 Raph
How the ASO aquired the Tour de France
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 newspap
Building the Cape Epic
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 h
Building Liv/Giant Bikes
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
Building Rapha
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
Building Zwift (replay on their 10th anniversary)
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
Building Canyon Bikes (Replay)
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 A
Building Cervelo (Replay)
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 overwhel
Overnight Success: Building Factor Bikes
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 av
How the founders of Kona Bikes saved their company
It’s been said that Kona is 'The Smallest Biggest Bike Company in the World'. They’re best known as the quintessential North Shore bike brand, yet their global head office is just down over the border in Ferndale, Washington.The quirky company stood out with outrageous bike model names such as the Stinky Dee-Lux, Sex One, Sex Too, and, Jackshit, which placed them well and truly as the "al
Industry Special Q&A: Buyer ethics, Brexit, advocacy and more...
In our final episode of this limited series, we turn the floor over to member questions. Thank you to everyone who became members throughout this series. Every single one of you helps make us produce more content like this. If you're not a member, you can join here: https://escapecollective.com/join/You can listen another podcast you'll enjoy about 'Why are modern bikes so expensive' podc
How did the bike industry get into such deep trouble? EP4: The Aftermath
In EP3, we heard about what much of the bike industry experienced during that dramatic slowdown of bike sales, and what resulted. In this episode, EP4, we'll hear about some of the learnings and takeaways from the past three years, and put forward some tough questions for the bike industry to ask itself.
How did the bike industry get into such deep trouble? EP3: The Famine
This is the third episode in our series that takes a deep dive into what the bike industry experienced during the covid boom and how it got into the trouble it’s in now.In Episode 2, we heard from various industry professionals about the early warning signals that told them that this bubble was about to burst, and some of the reckless behaviour and pressure that was being put onto various
How did the bike industry get into such deep trouble? EP2: The Storm Clouds
In episode one we heard about the unexpected windfall that the cycling industry saw at the start of the pandemic and how many needed to react. Of course that didn’t last forever, and in this episode I’ve titled ‘the storm clouds’ we talk about the early signs that this new demand was coming to an abrupt halt, and the types of behaviour that was happening and the causes of that behaviour t
How did the bike industry get into such deep trouble? EP1: The Feast
In this 4 part series, I wanted to explore the events that took place that led the bike industry to the troubling point it’s at now. I spoke to over a dozen industry professionals from all parts of the supply chain. From well run bike shops, forecasting analysts, distributors, the biggest bike brands in the world, and manufacturers. It’s well known that the bicycle industry went through a
Building Hunt Wheels
There’s an undeniable truth that an overnight success takes about 10 years, not a single night. Almost no one comes up with a winning business idea all at once. And if you’re not Peter and Tom Marchment or those around them who created the aftermarket wheel brand Hunt, you might be mistaken that they came out of nowhere. Tom and Peter are brothers who grew up riding in a small fishing vil
Building DeFeet
DeFeet is mostly thought about as a sock brand, and that’s largely the case, even though they also make arm warmers, gloves and base layers. After 31 years of being in the trade, they’re the longest-standing business dedicated to socks in the cycling market that I’m aware of. Back in the 90’s socks may have been the least interesting, and most neglected piece of apparel in a cyclist's war
Building Bowhead
Bowhead is a business that’s only about 5 years old, but it’s been twenty years in the making. It’s a brand many of you probably haven’t heard of before, and despite this I truly hope that you do listen to this episode, because this one is one of the most inspiring stories that I’ve come across while making this podcast. Christian Bagg has been a lifelong adrenaline junkie who loved mount
Building MAAP
Over the past decade, MAAP has risen to become one of the most successful and highly regarded apparel brands in the market. Born in the age of Instagram brands in 2014, there was an explosion of these micro-brands with a design-led ethos popping up all over the place. Cycling apparel was going through a big change at this time. People were loving untraditional and playful kits and they we
Building CyclingTips
This month we’ve got a different episode for you. For a long time now I've been asked to share the origin story of CyclingTips in this podcast, but I always knew there was more to come in this journey. But now that the story is complete, I figured this is a good time to tell it.Instead of this being a monologue, I asked Mitch Docker (from the Life in the Peloton podcast) to host this epis
Building Castelli
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
Building The Sufferfest
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 bo
Building Skratch Labs
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 p
Building 7mesh
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 cre
Building Apidura
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 o
Building Zipp Wheels
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 O
Building Rocket Espresso
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
Building SRAM
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 ch
Building Silca
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, th
Building Ritchey
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
Building Wahoo
Most businesses we’ve spoken to in this podcast have had a relatively straightforward journey, but Wahoo Fitness does not fit that mould. Chip Hawkins is the company’s founder and believe it or not, the Wahoo business started off in boat docks. That’s right, floating boat docks. But it was a good business with interesting problems that Chip loved to solve.Chip is an engineer, an entrepren
Building Strava
Escape Collective is entirely member-funded. If you like this podcast please consider supporting us by becoming a member: https://escapecollective.com/member/---Strava has become ubiquitous in the lives of over 50 million athletes and is arguably the most relevant social network to anyone who loves to sweat.The co-founders of Strava, Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey, have been lifelong fri
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