Latest / Zone2Speak Podcast / Alex Ostroy's Journey from Canvas to Cycling Couture

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Alex Ostroy's Journey from Canvas to Cycling Couture · Zone2Speak Podcast

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Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Zone to Speak podcast. We're your hosts, Debbie and Juliana.
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Music.
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On today's episode, we are delighted to introduce our special guest,
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Alex Ostroy, the visionary, co-creator, and artistic mind behind Ostroy,
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a dynamic cycling brand built with fellow cyclists and business partner, Aaron Vecchio.
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The essence of the Ostroy brand is all about self-expression,
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stemming from a genuine fusion of art and cycling that Alex combines to create
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a symphony of colors that intertwine to form a kaleidoscope rich with vitality
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and compose a melody of vivid, abstract, and insightful hues.
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His designs ignite conversations, evoke emotions, and inspire pure joy.
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Wearing a piece of Ostroy's line feels like a personal ride into his boundless creative universe.
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Through risks taken and obstacles faced, Ostroy unveils what fuels his inspiration
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and brings balance to his world.
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We are thrilled to have you on today, Alex. Welcome to the show.
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Thank you. Welcome, Alex.
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We're really happy to have you here today. So fill us in more.
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Let's start with your background and how you got started into cycling.
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And I know you're an illustrator as well.
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I want to know more about your artistic background.
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Well, I grew up cycling and drawing and painting always.
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But by the time I think I was 15 or 16, it was pretty clear which one had a
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chance of paying the bills.
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Might not have been the way that I would have chosen it, but I had friends that
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were already making it onto the national team and who would go on to race in
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the Tour de France and stuff.
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And it didn't seem to be my destiny.
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I moved to New York City actually after high school to pursue a career mostly as a painter.
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And I just wasn't sure what I wanted
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to do. But I knew that that's where Basquiat and harrowing was from.
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I knew that's where punk rock and rap was being invented or was invented.
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And that energy and excitement and the aesthetic, the kind of very eccentric
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DIY, very American kind of aesthetic attracted me.
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So I moved in I got a job as a messenger And at one point I slept on someone's
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couch And that's sort of how I started.
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Were you a bike messenger? I was a walking messenger. I actually didn't even bring my bike.
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I didn't realize there was even, in my mind, I was like, well,
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no one can ride a bike in New York City. That's absurd. How funny.
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It's super insightful too at that age to make that big move.
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That was kind of the reason I did it at the time. I think I just needed a kick in the ass.
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I knew if I, I grew up in Los Angeles, if I stayed there, just not much was going to happen for me.
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So I just the I had a friend that
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moved here and he said it's so difficult to just
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get up in the morning brush your teeth comb your hair and
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get to the subway that everything else is easy and I was like that makes no
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that you know that's totally absurd but it made sense to me for some reason
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yeah it clicked that's it it worked for me that's how you find your groove too
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so how did Did you get into painting on your own?
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Were you just following your heart? I was.
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Not to kill the romance of the story a little bit, but after about a year and
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a half, I mean, I was doing okay.
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I actually got into a gallery, but I didn't know anyone my age.
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I was working with a lot of adults. It was pretty tough.
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So I visited a friend who was going to Brown at the time and next to Rhode Island
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School of Design. And I sort of went and I begged them to take me.
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They said, we can't take anyone halfway through the semester,
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but if you can submit an application, you know, maybe you can start next year.
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So I did that. And so, and then came back and majored in painting.
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Did you feel like that honed in on all your skills?
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Did you learn so much more through that? Sometimes school helps,
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sometimes it can get in the way. I mean, I think it probably did a little bit of both.
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I mean, you learn a lot from the people that you meet who are still some of my closest friends.
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It'd be hard to imagine my life without that. But I think there's a trade-off.
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But I think now it's my experience, so it's hard to imagine my life.
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You seem to have a very successful career in
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arts and then it looks like I think
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it was 2013 that you made the switch more into the
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cycling world working even I believe with with Gran
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Fondo New York how how did that
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happen so what happened was when when I came to New York I again even after
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college I had no plans to be a cyclist and I became an illustrator and was lucky
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enough to start picking up work with Rolling Stone and Wired and,
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In those days, you could make a living as a magazine illustrator,
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and you could pick up all kinds of illustration jobs.
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So that career sort of panned out for me.
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In the 90s, if you could do illustration, because of the computers coming to
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the fore, it was the crossover between illustration and graphic design.
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Was, so I started to pick up all kinds of different work, mostly because people
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didn't understand exactly what I did. So they said, could you design my website?
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And I was like, it's not really what I do.
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And then sometimes if it's not intriguing, I was like, sure,
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I'll design it. But it's, it's funny.
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I, I taught also at Pratt and Parsons and SVA.
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And I think the best class, somebody had me teach a class for graphic design.
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I said, it. I'm not a graphic designer.
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And they said, that's why we want you because it's for non-major.
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Love it. Very smart.
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Because I wasn't really, I don't consider myself like a pure graphic designer.
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And they said, well, these are kids from painting and filmmaking and other departments.
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So you can help explain it to them, to people who aren't or sell it to them,
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really the importance of it.
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That helped me and I definitely got a lot better at it going through that because
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it is a different skill, which I would not have realized as much when I was at RISD.
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I just thought that any good painter could be a good graphic designer,
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I think a little bit dismissively, but that's not necessarily true. trip.
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No, I don't believe that either. I think there's certain things that we're meant to do.
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So Gran Fondo, New York, that was one of those key projects that kind of kick
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certain things off. Exactly.
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So what happened was my career was going well, picked up cycling as a way to commute.
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And I started going on the weekends. I was like, I'll just go to Central Park.
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And I had just a three -speed bike just to do a couple of laps.
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Before I knew it, I was riding with groups of people in the back with my three-speed bike.
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And then, well, maybe I should pick up a road bike.
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It's a slippery slope. And before you knew it, I was racing again.
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So I got immersed in that community.
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And then on the teams that I was on, because I was involved as a designer,
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they'd say, I said, okay, your job is going to be design our jersey and work
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on our website and design stuff.
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So I started doing that. I didn't think of switching careers or doing this.
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I had no desire to go into the cycling industry at all.
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Aaron, who became my partner, I started a development team.
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And he was on my development team. And he called me years later,
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kind of out of the blue. and he said,
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He was a bond trader and he said, I'm going to quit my job and start a cycling jersey company.
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Yeah, it does sound a little crazy when you hear it like that.
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Exactly. I didn't know him that
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well at the time. I said, why would you do that? You're out of your mind.
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No, like I'm not, I'm not going to do that. That's crazy.
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It's like starting a restaurant or a rock band or, you know, becoming an actor.
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You're you know if that's not your all-consuming passion
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why would you do that the odds are so slim
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so that was a that was the talk that we had
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i had already now at this point for fun
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i had done some jerseys for teams and they had picked up a little bit of a following
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on Instagram and a local bike shop started carrying some of them it still didn't
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really make me think i wanted to quit my It was just a fun hobby. Yeah.
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It's cool to see your art and people wearing it too.
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It was like my two passions kind of coming together. I just never thought it
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could be a living in cycling.
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He called me again the next week.
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Wow. Oh, my gosh. I said we had the same conversation.
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He called me again the next week. He was in a mission. He was in a mission. He was.
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I think somebody was trying to tell you something too. I guess so.
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And he said, he said, look, I'm going to, I'm going to do this,
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you know, with or without you.
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I'm just going to do it. And I,
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I had by then some connections in cycling besides the design background.
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And I was like, well, if you really want, you know, this it's crazy,
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but what the hell, you know, we can try it for a few months and if it doesn't work, no big deal.
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Honestly, I was worried about him. And I felt bad for him, which of course is
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ironic now, because as it turns out, he was an amazing partner.
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And even though I've become sort of the face of the brand, it owes probably
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more of the success to him than to me, to tell you the truth.
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And now when I'm walking down the streets in New York,
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sometimes I'll wonder how many great architects and chefs and all kinds of people
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that just haven't met the right partner, you know, are just never going to sort of realize,
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what they could or wanted to do.
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A hundred percent. I feel that way about Jules, my co-host. I was just going to say that.
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Yes, because we had these ideas and I think on our own, we both kind of felt
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like, I don't know if I can do this. But when you find the right person to do
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something with and there's passion behind it and there's obviously skill behind.
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Makes for a beautiful partnership. I think you both had such strengths that
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maybe you didn't even completely realize, but there was no mistaking why he
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chose you and kept hounding you.
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I mean, that's just obvious talent that was standing out and that you're brilliant at what you do.
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So I'm sure that felt good for him to come to you to ask that because he could go to somebody else.
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So coming to you- I think so, yeah. Honestly, I think I was the only one that
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he knew Dude, that was... Stop.
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Yeah, well, you can't say that now. Art can look completely different on a different
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sized canvas and platform.
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So an idea in your mind or a painting, when you're wearing it in a shirt or
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a jersey, everything's smaller scale, how it's going to come across, the whole piece of it.
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How do you make all of that magic kind of work?
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It's just trial and error, I think.
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I think there are a lot of good designers that have never designed a jersey or a shirt.
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And I can see the same things that I did wrong, especially when you're because
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it's really, you know, that the shape of the human body is not flat and people
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design it on a piece of paper or a desktop.
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And then, for example, if you put a logo on the sleeve, it comes out to look
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much bigger than you think when you're laying it out on a pattern.
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There are many things like that.
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So it's, you know, you get it back when you first start. You're like,
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oh, I didn't mean to. That looks terrible.
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Yeah, some patterns that you see with some people, not even just in cycling,
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but in fashion in general, you're like, didn't they check that?
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You know, and it's on someone's boobs or bum, you know, like looking funny. And you're like, no.
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Actually, this is like a probably not surprising point of contention between
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my business partner and me.
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And I don't blame him. So often, if you look carefully, a lot of the designs
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are, I will change them iteration to iteration.
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I'll get it back. I'll say, no, I really wanted to, you know,
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I mean, honestly, I would keep doing it on all of them probably every time.
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Some of them have gone through five or six iterations. Inspirations.
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And sometimes that's been very helpful because they really started off in a
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place that I just didn't get it right.
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And then sometimes I go on a few rides with somebody wearing it and then it
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hits me. That's really helpful.
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Kind of out of the blue, not at my desk. And then I'm like, oh,
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that's what I should have done with that design. on.
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It's so true. It's inspiration is being out there looking at things like just
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now that I'm looking at Jewel's shirt, all the colors that are coming out,
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my eye keeps moving to the different colors in the movement.
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And that just excites your mind. The funny story, that's been one of our more popular shirts.
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And so another big piece of our company is this relationship we've forged with
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this small family-owned company factory in Tuscany.
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Is that where everything's made? Yeah, everything is made in Tuscany.
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And actually, it's Ferragosto now, the Italian holiday, where they take August off.
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And the owner of the factory and his wife are actually visiting us in New York now.
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We've become so close, which I think is sort of just the way they do business.
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You know, we came here the first time and we were instantly,
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we had to have breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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You know and it wasn't it's it definitely is a different kind of culture it
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wasn't just like a like an american business dinner oh like you have to be friends.
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Business and absolutely yeah and it turned out to be a great fit for us this
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factory because they were it's not an enormous factory so they're they were
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flexible enough to kind of try out some of our crazy ideas and continue to.
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I love that. Yeah, I guess also I'm just thinking now that we're talking about
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this, the patterns and the patterns working lively on a bike ride,
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but then you also probably have to talk to the factory, to this Italian family
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on the fabric and the cuts and all that and how it's going to work.
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Sure. We do a lot of work on that. Obviously, we get more attention for the
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surface design, but we do spend a lot of time on that, too.
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And to finish my story about that shirt is we wanted them years ago to get a
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new kind of printer that we thought would be a little bit more accurate and get some better detail.
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So they did it and they said, send us something to test it on.
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So I made a shirt out of a bunch of our other shirts and sent it to them.
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We got it back i hung it up in our office just to sort of use to look at the colors,
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and everybody that walked by was like oh could i
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buy that that's crazy and so
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then it only took me six months to realize you know if it's just sitting there
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like maybe we should actually make this so i worked on a little bit more but
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that's basically how that one came about of course you're The best ideas are
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just nothing you could consciously think of. I know, completely.
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Yeah, when I wear this shirt on the bike, I'm wearing the Ostrite,
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my favorite shirt, and just for the listeners.
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And I get so much attention. Everybody asks, oh my God, this is a cycling shirt?
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Where is it from? And then when people touch it and see how comfy and light
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and breathable it is, nobody can believe it.
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That's another thing that I think was that we got lucky on. That fabric,
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well, not lucky because we tried about 10 different fabrics to find that one, and we found this one.
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One of the smaller fabric makers, we wanted, we knew we wanted something that
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wasn't too stretchy and polyester, like a Jersey really had a cotton like feel,
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but breathed like a Jersey.
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And it was sort of exactly what we were looking for, but it was difficult to find.
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And it's been great for us. Weirdly, the fact that it is a little bit more expensive
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has kind of helped us because everybody that's copied that product thinks they're
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going to take a shortcut by using polyester, but it just doesn't work.
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I haven't seen anything like it. No.
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It falls on the body just right. It feels so good. And it looks amazing.
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And I still need to order. I really want to try. So you guys are really pushing the boundaries.
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You guys now launched the mid, what is it called? Mid-rise? We've got crops.
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And then we released a shorter jersey. And then we have very high-waisted bibs. Yeah, I love the look.
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I just figured when I started riding as a kid, the jerseys were very long and
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going all the way back to when they first started.
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And they've just sort of gotten shorter and shorter. But I still think that
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if you do it right, you can still make them a little bit shorter.
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Shorter and everything that happens around the waist, the way that it sort of
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grabs and bunches, especially when you're in a cycling stance, you know, it's not good.
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Bad things happen there. I know.
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So I just figured just make it shorter.
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Not everybody can wear race cut style jerseys and they might love the pattern,
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but they can't fit into that. That's a good point.
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With the modern fabrics, they really stretch a lot.
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And I've still yet to meet somebody that couldn't fit into our jersey.
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That said, some people don't want to look like that.
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I, you know, some people will get a bigger size, which is fine.
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We help them by pointing out some people want a smaller size.
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If you look at the guys in the Tour de France or at the front of a big gravel
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race, they're wearing a tiny jersey and not, you know, for aerodynamics.
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And that's fine. And then there are other people who are going to want a slightly looser jersey.
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So sizing for a cycling jersey is a little bit different the way that you look at it than a shirt.
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But then that aside, I would say to your point with the aesthetics.
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I guess we're sort of covering the range.
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We've got the Minimo jersey, which is a little bit more flamboyant,
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and then the resort shirt,
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which can be worn a number of different ways, but certainly it's more casual
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and you don't have to put your body on display in the same way that you do with
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a regular cycling shirt.
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So you did mention that you don't love to follow trends.
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You don't follow everything that you see some of these other companies following
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where they're just releasing a subset of colors and it's very minimal and very safe.
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What is your approach as far as for designing and releasing a new line?
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I mean, honestly, I think, of course, it's just more fun for me.
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And that's what I want to do. But that aside, I would still say,
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as a business strategy, to me, it makes a lot of sense.
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I mean, I think what Simon Matret did with Rafa was brilliant.
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And he made cycling jerseys. You know, he made them very minimal.
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He helped to make them more accessible for new riders.
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And he just, he sold it as a lifestyle brand, which was brilliant.
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Everyone has sort of copied that now. But since that sort of hinge in this marketplace,
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now everyone just copies Rafa.
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I feel like it stopped and everybody wanted that classic look and they represented that.
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Sometimes we want to wear something different someday. days.
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Some days we do want to be very classic and a low key minimal color,
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but some days we just want to wear something more bright and expressive.
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Right. So from a business standpoint, I think what I'm saying is if we're going
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to zag when everybody else zigs, it's probably a good idea.
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We're not going to overtake Rafa in popularity.
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That's fine. We're not for everybody.
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However, However, there have got to be hundreds and hundreds of companies,
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very small companies that are just offering basically, you know,
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jerseys along that aesthetic.
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Why not do something different? Why not try some different ideas?
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I don't, you know, they don't, I think for the smaller companies,
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they have nothing to lose.
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I agree. And you're staying in a lane that you're good at too.
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Some companies will just try to do so many different things and offering too
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many different products.
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It confuses the mind. It's too much. And you want to be able to see a nice lineup
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of everything and everything kind of flows together.
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It has an energy. What I love literally from your logo, the way you lay out
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the whole website, it's a very simple formula and it works. And I think the
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formula is there really isn't much of a formula.
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We get around kind of making crazy stuff. And, you know, we're in a bunch of
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stores like REI now, and they keep wanting us to.
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Tell us what the spring line, what the fall line is next year.
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I'm like, I don't know. I haven't even started thinking about it yet.
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You know, we don't really plan things years in advance because we're always,
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that's the thing I think that differentiates us is most of these companies.
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Now I was designing before I started this as one of my clients,
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I picked up some cycling companies And I would design jerseys for them and help
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them consult with them on their jerseys and bibs a little bit before I started the company.
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And they, you know, they were very scared to spend too much money on design.
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You know, they thought of it as like icing, you know, on the cake.
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It wasn't something it was like, oh, we can't really afford it.
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And of course, I kept thinking, you know, somebody came in with design in a bigger way.
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I think the same way Simon Montreat came in with marketing, he realized,
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he said, these people think they're marketing, but they're not really where
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he came from. Like, that's not marketing.
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Let me show you how to really do marketing. And he did.
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And it was like cycling caught its death of a cold. You know,
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just a little bit of it went a long way.
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It worked really, really well because no one had really done it before.
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You know, people had thought they were doing a lifestyle brand, but they hadn't.
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So in that way, we thought that that was something that could be unique about
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us coming in, coming from design.
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Design. We knew it wouldn't be for everybody. We knew a lot of people wouldn't like it. That's good.
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Too many of these companies, I feel like, would do better not worrying about
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that because they're just coming out with solid color, Rafa-esque jerseys.
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No one's going to hate it. No one's going to love it.
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And then all of a sudden, you're sort of, what are you competing on?
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Right. You start to see something out there and you're like,
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oh, what is that you're wearing? because some of the stuff you notice the construction sometimes, but,
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Other than that, if you don't set yourself apart in another way,
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you kind of blend into the landscape a bit, too.
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Especially if they're not representing their brand in a different light,
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like Austria does, where you'll see the New York City background.
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You'll see that it's artistic, eccentric.
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Austria has an identity. It's a clear identity. If you see something out there,
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you can see it's Austria by the design.
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We saw when we first looked at the space that somebody commented,
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a lot of these brands, you could really take the product and the photos and
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switch them and no one would notice.
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We felt there was space to do something different there.
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I've had help there. I mean, in New York cycling, there are a lot of brilliant photographers.
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So we're lucky there. And it's difficult to catch things like that motion and
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the art in the jerseys because they move a lot, like you said,
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with the design, with the body.
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You do have to have a good photographer who can catch everything.
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It's a good point with us because I think with excelling a red jersey, you just need a picture.
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It's more about the sunlight and the mountains and the people, the vibe.
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You're not really showing the jersey. With our photos, to show them to people,
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you have to actually see the pattern on the jersey.
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Exactly. It's more limiting, so we have to think of sort of more creative ways
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of showing it. Do you feel like it's coming to that now when you see your website,
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when you see the photographs?
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Do you feel like it's coming to life? Not at all, of course.
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I think it's all. I wish it was a lot better.
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We're always working to try to get it there.
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The ideas you have in your head, they never really come out exactly as well
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as you can imagine them. And of course, day to day, it's still running a clothing company.
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And all we see is the problems that the Italian suppliers to the factory are
27:18
late with certain kinds of fabrics. And, you know, one thing after.
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Announce that we don't get to see on the outside.
27:25
Exactly. Now, I am very lucky that I do get to spend a lot of time just sort of.
27:30
Drawing, which is the funnest, but also in other ways, even harder than the
27:33
other stuff, because I'm just sitting there like, I don't know, what should I do?
27:37
You know, next, I think I come up with a great idea.
27:40
I'm like, this is terrible. And I just spent a week, you know.
27:44
That's like the most difficult part.
27:46
But I realized early on that if I couldn't do that, I just wouldn't be happy.
27:52
You know, if I got a great job with great people, that was fun.
27:55
And I wasn't able to pursue this all day, it would not, it gnaws at me.
28:02
So, you know, it's the, I made my bed, I guess.
28:06
Yeah. So speaking of that, do you have any big influences in your creative side,
28:13
any creative process when you're, you know, designing a new line?
28:19
Right. I would say my biggest influence is really New York City.
28:23
Again, why I moved here to begin with, with all those different things,
28:26
all those artists. I'll ride around.
28:29
I take pictures of snippets of candy wrappers, book cover, people's weird old clothes.
28:38
I go to vintage stores and take pictures of things there.
28:42
I'm always, I probably do that two or three times a day and throw away like 90.
28:47
But it's all part of the process, I guess. Like putting all those things together
28:51
and recycling the ideas until you, I guess, something.
28:55
I love retro. I'm big into mid-century.
28:58
And I see a lot of that coming through with the lines, with the way you illustrate.
29:05
Well, I think part of it that I always wanted to include is classic cycling.
29:11
There's a great, rich history of design in cycling.
29:14
This is sort of the core of our brand is to fuse that with the modern aesthetics
29:21
that aren't really, because I think in classic cycling design,
29:26
it's very insular. They're not eccentric.
29:29
They're not eclectic. They're not putting in unexpected outside influences.
29:33
Like I said, originally, it was a very American, again, with things like rap
29:40
and the East Village painting that was going on in the 80s, where people were
29:45
doing a lot of collage and stuff like that,
29:48
where anything is fair game and just throw it into the pot.
29:51
So I wanted to, that's sort of a core part of our brand is bringing that very
29:57
American way of making art into cycling.
30:01
I've seen some of your drawings lately inspired by the Le Tour.
30:06
Are you bringing any of these to life in the collection or those are just for
30:11
us to admire and for fun? Well, it's funny.
30:14
One of the things I've learned is, you know, the Mona Lisa or Rothko is a great
30:22
painting, but it doesn't mean it's a great jersey.
30:24
A resort shirt, as you can see, has a very different aesthetic for us.
30:29
Some things can work for both. There's no strict rules.
30:33
But so I think sometimes we do have, there is obviously crossover.
30:39
We have our Tour de France shirt and some of those were originally,
30:42
all of them were originally drawings that I just threw onto there.
30:46
And that's true of a lot of the drawing in the resort shirts started as sketches
30:51
that were just kind of scanned into the computer and then put on the shirt.
30:57
But sometimes I have an idea for a drawing and I just make a drawing.
31:03
And I don't think it necessarily would be a great jersey. Sometimes it's a cartoon
31:09
or just a funny kind of like visual pun about cycling. I love that.
31:14
I have the little sticker. girl pretty okay stuff like
31:17
that okay it's very good or the shirt you're
31:20
using i would but i'm writing on that day
31:23
you know it's sort of like i guess ideas come to
31:25
me once in a while and then when they do i'm like well is this a is it a sticker
31:30
is it a t-shirt usually it's pretty obvious what it is you know but sometimes
31:36
i'm not sure sometimes other people tell me they're like no no that should be
31:40
a vest that would be great and i'm like you're right that should be a vest Also,
31:45
it depends who you have around you to give you those kind of ideas and bring that out.
31:48
And on ideas, you know, that's what I also like to tell.
31:51
It's not feedback to kill. It's just to build on ideas. A hundred percent.
31:57
I happened to be following Tour de France and I saw the illustration come up
32:02
that you had done of Gourmet.
32:04
And I just thought, I can look at art, but if something doesn't really make
32:08
me think or have a conversation about it, like, who is this? Who did this?
32:12
This is amazing. It's the classic aesthetic.
32:16
It looked like classic cycling, what you'll see in these posters that you would
32:19
have seen from old school Tour de France.
32:22
And that's what really drew me to this. And then when somebody's like,
32:27
oh, that's Alex Ostroy, I had the motivation right away to let you know how
32:31
I felt and that I wanted to talk to you about that. I saw so much creativity.
32:36
We love that. And when we found out this is like, okay, the artist is also the
32:41
brand, we knew we wanted to have you on the show and talk about it.
32:45
And, you know, especially I have a couple, if not more, of the resort shirts.
32:50
So it's super cool to have you here and talk to you and learn more about,
32:55
you know, your creative influences and what got you here.
32:58
And it would be great to also know a little bit more of the future vision.
33:02
Like we see a lot of smaller brands collaborating with shoe brands or bike brands.
33:08
And does Ostroi has any vision of collaboration or what is the future looking like?
33:16
We have. We've done a few of those with sunglasses brands, with branch drink mix.
33:22
We're doing something with Continental Tires right now. We've done a lot,
33:28
too, of course, with the resort shirts.
33:30
A lot of people have reached out to us, groups, companies, corporations.
33:34
Operations and they say we you know we like this
33:37
style especially the ones with the
33:40
drawings of places they're like can you do a bunch of drawings of our town where
33:45
we're from and and make it into a shirt and you know if it seems like a fun
33:50
project and that sort of aligns with our goals and stuff like that and yeah
33:55
we'll do those i'm sure all of companies even smaller companies like Like, obviously,
34:00
a lot of offers and asks every day that we have to sort of sift through.
34:05
Any funny stories to share on those asks? There are a lot of offers to take free clothes.
34:11
Along those lines, like, obviously, if, you know, Peter Sagan writes us and
34:18
says, Hey, guys, I want to wear your stuff from now on to every speaking engagement I go to.
34:23
Just give me free clothes. Of course, that would be an absurd deal on his side. We would do that.
34:30
I'm saying aside from our brand, I guess, just like the, the,
34:33
the, as a business that makes sense. Right.
34:37
And then we also have, as part of what we try to do from the start is getting
34:43
jerseys and bibs and other supplies to our progress that I've been involved
34:48
with before the company.
34:49
I challenged myself, ride upgrades, kids ride club charities in New York that
34:56
help get kids and underserved neighborhoods on bikes.
34:59
Everything in between, though, is like, we want to do one or the other.
35:03
Yeah, there's so much thought that goes behind building your brand and how you
35:08
want it represented and how it's going to work with other collaborations as
35:11
well. It's so much thought.
35:13
I wanted to mention about your giving back with the kids and the programs.
35:18
Have you ever thought about having them help you design something or see what
35:22
they come up with as far as having them draw and see what inspires them and
35:27
see if you can release least something like that for charity to build off of?
35:31
Well, we've actually, so we had an award for Ride Up Grades where we gave a
35:38
different kid a bike and jerseys and paid for travel and race fees every year.
35:48
And one of the kids, for example, wants to start a clothing line.
35:52
He's not a kid it anymore. He's 23 years old now.
35:55
I've tried to help him introduce him to some people to manufacture.
35:59
So the kids that are interested both in cycling and design, I try to encourage
36:04
them and give them venues and ideas for pursuing them.
36:08
Yeah. I like that you do that in a mentoring role in that way.
36:12
It's funny because when I put on my shirt, I have two boys, six and nine,
36:17
and one of them's very artistic.
36:19
I actually want him to go into art. He can just draw all day long and he has
36:23
great perception, but they wanted to try it on.
36:27
I mean, it looked like a dress, but they said, mommy, can you please ask Astro
36:33
if he'll make some for kids?
36:35
So one of the problems we have being a small company is REI,
36:39
you know, makes huge orders.
36:40
They have a deal that they can change their mind at the last minute on a given
36:47
size or something like that.
36:49
Initially we had put in an order and they said they ordered
36:52
a lot of double extra smalls and then they changed their mind
36:55
so we had you know like 200 double extra smalls in one resort sure so eventually
37:01
we we did figure out that's what we did with them we found kids riding group
37:06
and we were able to give them to them yeah but it works perfectly yeah so it
37:11
does actually work that's great okay i'm going to be ordering in double extra small.
37:16
Or the crop top now i
37:19
want to ask as far as things that you like to cycle with what's one piece of
37:23
gear that you can't live without and who is inspiring you right now my best
37:29
friend in cycling is someone i've known for about 30 years who's ridden in central park since
37:37
the late 60s i have to i have a few friends that are candidates for people that
37:44
have done probably the most laps in central park which is hard to hard to know
37:49
because people have been locked in central park for 127 years but i can think
37:54
of a few that must really be up there so,
37:58
one of them is a friend of mine and i remember long before i thought of doing
38:03
this professionally Professionally, he always just was so brilliant at mixing
38:09
and matching different kits and things like that.
38:12
And I still ride with him all the time. His name is Avalo York,
38:16
and he is a big inspiration.
38:19
Awesome. You won't listen to this, but.
38:23
It's okay. His name's out there. You put it out. He's barely on the internet.
38:27
He doesn't have a cell phone.
38:29
But yeah, no, he's a legend in New York.
38:31
So riding with him is always an inspiration. and
38:35
he still will surprise me with some of his what
38:38
he shows up in exactly you know of
38:40
course i do make him wear my stuff a lot now you know
38:43
a lot of it at this point is my older friends that i that i ride with we all
38:49
used to race i have friends here and a similar group in la where i grew up when
38:55
i go there i do the same ride that i first did when i was 13 as a kid famous nickel So nostalgic.
39:03
Yeah, it's super fun. I lived in New York for about a decade and I was always
39:09
terrified of the tourists because they're not looking where they're going.
39:12
I got into a few accidents.
39:14
So I don't know how you guys are riding Central Park, I guess, early mornings.
39:20
Early morning is a good time to go fast. That's when we sort of own the park.
39:26
And if you go at 6, 5.30, 6, maybe to 7, 7.30, by 8, you probably can't really go that fast.
39:36
If you go on Saturday or Sunday Easter or something, you can't yell at people
39:41
and go fast. And everything is your fault.
39:43
And as it should be. Even if somebody runs out in the middle of the street,
39:47
why are you trying to do a workout in Central Park on a day like that?
39:52
So my friends, we for years would go at lunch, which actually was a viable time
39:58
a while ago, 20 to 30 years ago.
40:02
Yeah, that's a thing. In New York, it's definitely gotten even busier.
40:07
There's just more people in general. With the park, they're renting bikes.
40:12
People have made a very successful business out of that. That didn't used to be.
40:16
So you hear a lot. So there are a lot of tourists in the park all over the place
40:20
with their bikes by 9, 10 o'clock.
40:23
So you can't really do training lap. I remember riding up the west side,
40:28
up to George Washington.
40:31
That, depending also on the time of the day, you can kind of get a good ride.
40:36
Well, for us, that's a way to get to our ride, which is great to be car-free.
40:40
Although, of course, now it's just filled with e-bikes, scooters.
40:44
And now and just a common topic that
40:47
keeps coming up in each of the podcast episodes is like
40:50
we all mention e-bikes some way or another yeah but
40:53
you're seeing them everywhere i mean yeah it's another mode of transportation
40:56
too e-bikes are you know they're okay but the problem is is that they're like
41:02
a gateway vehicle because people see e-bikes and then all of a sudden they'll
41:07
have sort of like lightweight they'll have mopeds and before you know it there are motorcycles.
41:13
Now you're seeing everything. People are outfitting them and doing all sorts
41:17
of different things to their bikes and changing things up.
41:21
Didn't you do something with Greg Lamond for his e-bike line?
41:26
So before I started my company, that was one of the jobs I got.
41:30
This is a whole other story.
41:33
I started with a couple of friends in New York, a website about cycling.
41:38
Is this the New York City Velo?
41:40
Yes, that was it. So we started that in 2003, like before Facebook and stuff.
41:46
And one of my partners had just said that Lance Armstrong is dirty and the whole
41:54
cycling street. And this is like 2000.
41:57
I mean, it was a small website in New York. So we got attention internationally
42:02
more than, you know, like the Iowa local website or something.
42:05
But on the other hand, we didn't depend on the cycling industry for our living or for advertising.
42:10
We just did it for fun. So we started publishing articles by people that were
42:16
saying, and this is five years before Oprah.
42:19
That he was dirty and that they had proof and the way he was manipulating people and stuff like that.
42:27
And we got into it. It's a crazy story. There's an article about it that came
42:31
out in the New York Times after all of this happened.
42:33
So anyway, through that, I met a lot of people who became Lance Armstrong's
42:38
adversaries, the Andreus and the LeMans, first and foremost.
42:42
And of course, he was a childhood hero of mine. I actually had met him briefly as a kid.
42:47
And we just kind of hit it off. he helped
42:51
me originally actually with with I challenged myself he
42:54
came and did a ride for the charity and
42:57
we became he became friends and then he wanted me to come work for him I didn't
43:01
want to move to Minneapolis I ended up just working for him off-site and designing
43:06
for him and he was actually a big inspiration because I I talked to him about
43:12
doing our own brand and he had always encouraged me to do something like that.
43:16
So he's been very encouraging the whole time. Well, he's always been on the
43:20
cutting edge, LeMond cycles from the start.
43:23
It's funny, he's come up a lot. And I watched the more recent documentary that he did the last ride.
43:29
And that was amazing. You got to see more of a dynamic and he does speak about that.
43:34
I had a lot of friends that were that didn't believe it.
43:37
And it said, but he's the most tested athlete and how can he get,
43:41
you know, I mean, at first I wanted to, to believe it.
43:44
Winning the Tour de France so many times and fighting cancer.
43:48
I don't know him personally, but I think in this day and age,
43:51
it's about being honest and redeeming yourself because everybody is also going
43:56
to have their opinion no matter what. Absolutely.
43:59
We were talking about Greg LeMond and that guy's just special.
44:03
He's got one heck of a wife. It's just like a good business.
44:07
If you have good people built around you and involved in your life,
44:12
it's a recipe for success if you can make all of that work. Absolutely.
44:17
He's definitely done that. He's definitely a different kind of guy, for sure.
44:22
He does. He is. A lot of people had the impression that he was bitter because he was so frustrated.
44:28
It was so difficult for him during the Armstrong time. But actually,
44:31
he's not like that at all.
44:32
He's a lot of he's a lot of fun he's very open everybody has stories like if
44:36
you see him on the street i've heard this story countless times just cycling
44:40
people that will see him if he happens to be in new york.
44:43
And say, you know, hey, Greg, catch him, maybe get a selfie or an autograph
44:47
and end up going into Starbucks with him and talking for 45 minutes.
44:50
That's where he's hosted. But I've been part of a bunch of events with him over the years.
44:56
And Kathy always gives me the job of sort of being the Greg Wrangler because
45:00
she's so tired of it after a while.
45:02
Because how do people pay to go, you know, talk to Greg and get their picture taken?
45:08
The first three will spend an hour with them. The rest of them will never see
45:11
him. You have to go up there and be like, okay, this is really great.
45:15
You know, thanks. Get your picture. Sorry, the next people are coming up.
45:19
If you're at the end and maybe you see two more people, you can stay after with them.
45:23
If you're at the end, your best bet is to just stay and like take him to the
45:27
bar across the street and close it down.
45:30
And he's got amazing stories, actually. Actually, one of the things I really
45:37
love to do is get some of his best stories and get them down two or three minutes and then animate.
45:43
That's my dream for Greg.
45:47
He's just got a real personality. And one of the things you see coming across
45:51
and what I've got out of interviewing you today is you just say what you want to say.
45:56
There's no kind of putting a spin on your answers. You're just being very honest
46:01
and open about your process.
46:04
You don't have to put a pretty bow on everything is what I'm trying to say,
46:08
which in today's day, a lot of people are doing more or less is they want to
46:14
just show you and produce this perfect picture of something,
46:17
but we don't know what is behind any of it.
46:20
There's no layer of truth anymore. I need more media coaching or something, baby.
46:26
No, Alex. It's authentic. And I think it's much more relatable.
46:32
It's 100% authentic. We need more of it when you can have some real conversations
46:37
and get a real side of what somebody is like, deep dive into their creativity
46:42
and what makes them a success.
46:44
You can understand how and why it all happened.
46:48
So I don't know if you want to share anything else personally.
46:52
If anyone's going to be listening at this point, go ahead. Of course they are. Okay.
46:56
Shoot. I don't know if it's something that you guys think about.
47:00
How do you measure up between performance, comfort, and quality?
47:05
Because I know some brands that I really like and wear, for example,
47:09
super comfortable, but you have to compromise on the quality sometimes, right?
47:13
Because if you want to put something more durable there, it means that maybe
47:16
it's, I don't know if I have the right word, but harder fabric, if you will.
47:21
What are your thoughts on that? To tell you the truth, to me,
47:25
it's taken us a long time, I think, to get to where we really wanted to be.
47:31
There's price, of course, is involved with that. So I mean, industry-wide, it's interesting.
47:38
La Passion, I don't know if you saw that. They just went into business.
47:42
This is, to me, the interesting part about it because they did the Rafa thing.
47:47
I thought they did a good job of it. Now, as an industry person,
47:51
I know the products they were using, the fabrics, the pads, some of them were
47:56
the same stuff we're using.
47:57
It's funny because a lot of people will say on Reddit, this brand is this,
48:03
This brand does that, this brand tiled or doesn't watch well.
48:09
And they're using the same fabric. It's just a perception.
48:13
A lot of times they really are, especially the fancier brands.
48:16
So Le Passion, they couldn't say this, but they were really providing a lot of value.
48:21
It's not a great message in a romantic business like this.
48:25
Hey, this is really pretty much as good as those other brands and it's 20,
48:29
30% less. that's really what they were selling to me.
48:34
And but nobody wants to hear that. You know what I mean? People.
48:37
They don't. They want to hear that this is something special.
48:41
But a lot of people don't want to spend six hundred dollars on a kid now. And I don't blame them.
48:47
And I can't. Like as a middle class kid, I think both my partner and I,
48:53
I don't think it was even totally conscious.
48:56
You know what I mean? We're not claiming like that we're from the streets or
48:59
that we're aristocrats, right?
49:02
It is kind of a middle-class brand.
49:05
Our markups are probably a little bit less than most people.
49:08
We don't spend as much on, you know, we don't have a pro team.
49:11
We're not sponsoring a Tour de France team or anything like that.
49:15
So we use the same fabrics as some of those premium lines.
49:21
We use elastic interface pads, as did La Passione, which I was surprised to
49:26
see at some of the price points they were doing, because we have a woven bib
49:29
bibbed with the highest end elastic interface pad.
49:33
So woven as opposed to, I don't know if you want to put this again.
49:36
This could be in a way more interesting than a lot of the stuff we've just talked about.
49:40
Yeah, it is super interesting. The construction of everything.
49:44
Okay, I can talk about that.
49:46
So there are two kinds of fabrics in cycling bibs. There is knitted and woven.
49:54
And if you think about it, you probably could figure it out.
49:57
Knitted is, if you can imagine, one piece of yarn and knitting needles.
50:01
Obviously, it's all done by machine, but it's one piece of thread.
50:05
So it's a cheaper way to do it. And it usually does the job well.
50:10
The 99% of the clothes you have are knitted.
50:14
If you think of a loom where you have multiple threads or pieces of yarn...
50:20
And you're putting those together, it's a little bit more complicated.
50:23
You have to start with a bunch of different threads, but it gives you a bunch of advantages.
50:28
Obviously, you can weave different fabrics together, and then it just is able
50:32
to compress and expand more, as you can imagine with separate pieces of thread
50:38
across a modern mechanical loom.
50:42
All the bibs that you get, say,
50:44
at about $300 and more are made of woven fabric. It should trickle down.
50:51
And that's one of the things that we have tried to be innovative about.
50:56
Again, it's a hard thing to put forward in our advertising, our literature,
51:01
or maybe we're just doing a bad job of it.
51:02
So we have $200 bibs that have that the top end elastic interface pad,
51:08
which I think is pretty much the best pad on the market and one of the most expensive for sure.
51:13
And is made out of woven fabric, has a mesh upper, no cups, seamless,
51:21
densibly tested by the pros in Tuscany and so on.
51:25
It's a difficult message for us, but something that we care very deeply about.
51:31
And it's a little frustrating that we can't get that message out because I think
51:35
our bibs are really at a place that provide tremendous value.
51:40
I mean, the technology is amazing now.
51:43
If you can really use some of these latest fabrics and our factory has done a great job.
51:50
They've been in Italy making cycling goods for 50 years. They know it's a small community.
51:56
They can introduce us to all the fabric makers and all the people that are involved
52:02
with that have helped us consult on constructing the bibs. Yeah, I think you...
52:10
You talked about the marketing and I think you guys are doing a great job,
52:13
but I think there's a lot of education on the consumer side.
52:16
You know, there's so many people that come to me like, what bib do I get?
52:19
We talked about that in another episode that we're talking bike shop.
52:22
What bike do I get? So it's the same thing with the bib. What bib do I get?
52:25
So for you to explain that you're only going to enjoy a ride when you fast doesn't
52:30
have to be the most expensive, but you need to understand those types of techniques
52:33
and make your choice and see what works for you.
52:35
So I think it's important that there is some consumer education out there on
52:40
those websites, on any brand, not just what is the technology,
52:44
but how does it work for you?
52:47
I think with bibs, for example, if they fit perfectly when you're standing up, that's not a good fit.
52:55
Again, it's complicated, but when you're in a cycling crowd, you want it to fit then.
53:01
So the straps are probably going to be a little bit tight when you're standing up.
53:06
And it and it's a good point you make about because
53:09
it i think i was thinking about this the other day
53:11
you know with bikes they'll come out with 12 speed
53:15
or or disc brakes or any of these
53:18
innovations and then that's the way that the bike industry they
53:21
need to do that every few years or the it'll just
53:24
die right but the innovations are are
53:28
obvious right there we have electric shifting now we
53:31
didn't before with the kits it's a little
53:33
more subtle and it because it is a fashion piece
53:36
too people are going to be are going to look at that first but if i look just
53:42
in our company that's been around for about seven six seven years the kits that
53:48
we did six years ago are like laughable to me now and how far it's progressed
53:54
and that wasn't that long ago ago.
53:57
And I think people wore that 10 years ago. It's so heavy and thick.
54:01
And now our jerseys, we have different fabrics for the side panels,
54:06
for the sleeves, for the pockets.
54:08
Even a very high-end jersey 15 years ago, sometimes they did that,
54:14
but not in the same way. They come out with all these incredible meshes now.
54:17
Some of them have two-way stretch, some of them four-way stretch on the jersey.
54:22
Sometimes four-way stretch isn't great for a side panel or a pocket necessarily.
54:28
You want a two-way stretch. I'm going off topic here, but someone did a great
54:33
video about that, about putting a wallet in there and showing the difference
54:37
between where things move.
54:39
And that's so important. You don't see that represented in a lot of websites or.
54:44
Product details as well. People tell us. At the end of the day,
54:47
though, unfortunately, it's an emotional virtuous.
54:51
People are going to see a picture of a jersey and they're like, that's me.
54:55
I have to have that. I need that.
54:58
See myself next Sunday on my ride in that jersey.
55:03
They don't want to know about two-way and four-way, which is funny.
55:07
It's me and your wildflower jersey. I need it.
55:12
I need it. We're both going crazy for them. We sent each other the same link.
55:16
So what other influences, since we talked about a lot of artistic,
55:20
obviously Basquiat and Haring, do you have other influences, musical?
55:25
Is there stuff that really helps you create? I know for me, I love music and
55:30
dancing. That helps me create.
55:31
I would say that's more of an inspiration usually than an influence per se, but sure.
55:37
Movies and of course, music. Do you have a favorite right now?
55:41
What are you listening to currently? I'm listening to a lot of samba music lately.
55:45
I don't know that much about it, but I love listening.
55:48
And I love the mid-century John Bean type stuff too. Sometimes I force myself.
55:53
It's hard because it is tedious and boring work, but I'll have nothing on and
55:59
just try to do a few hours like that.
56:02
And I know if I'm going well and it's not bothering me. It is difficult to do that kind of deep work.
56:07
I'd like to tell you I can do it all the time, but that's not.
56:11
I think we all would that deep work. It does take mindset focus.
56:15
So that brings me to one of my like last questions.
56:18
What do you what balances you? What do you like to do off the bike?
56:22
And what kind of gives you an overall balance? And I have no balance.
56:26
No balance. And I ride my bike.
56:30
So you work well in chaos as long as you ride your bike, you're good.
56:34
The other way around, my life's very boring.
56:36
It's like all I do is- Oh, please. I want boring in my life. I have two little kids.
56:42
I don't know what that sounds like or what that looks like anymore.
56:45
Yeah. I work and I ride my bike.
56:48
I'm not complaining. I'm very lucky. I get to pretty much do what I want when
56:52
I'm working and try to, as long
56:54
as enough people buy it, I can have enough money to make the next one.
56:57
That's kind of all you all you ask for in a
57:00
business like this but i do i mean for me
57:03
that's all i ever really wanted was the freedom to pursue my
57:06
ideas it seems like you got it we could sit here picking your brain and talking
57:10
to you forever you're just easy to talk to thank you so much for your time i
57:14
really appreciate this and the fact that you said yes to me you were one of
57:19
the first people i reached out to when we started the podcast just expecting
57:23
nothing and you made my day.
57:25
And to hear your story as well, it's been a privilege.
57:28
I hope we can talk to you again very soon. I hope so. Thank you.
57:32
Thank you, Alex. It's great to meet you. You too.
57:37
That's all for today's episode. We want to thank you, our listeners,
57:41
for tuning in. Your support means everything to us.
57:44
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, leaving a review,
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and sharing it with your friends.
57:51
Music.