For 20 years, Rapha has been at the vanguard of biking tradition, raising the game’s aesthetic and community-driven revel in. The British logo inspired us to put on our pastime for biking with satisfaction, to have fun our love for the game and to ask others to sign up for the journey. It wrote the playbook on learn how to be a a hit biking logo, however because it celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2024, it did so in opposition to a backdrop of persevered monetary demanding situations.
Reporting its 7th consecutive 12 months within the crimson—with a pre-tax lack of £22.7 million ($29.5 million) in the most recent accounts—Rapha is looking for a brand new trail ahead. But, regardless of its monetary losses, there may be an unmistakable optimism inside the corporate because it bets on a long term powered via ladies.
Rapha’s dedication to girls on motorcycles isn’t new, nevertheless it’s by no means been extra visual. Final fall, participation within the Rapha Girls’s 100 match grew via 40%, making it its largest 12 months but. A month later, Fran Millar stepped in as the emblem’s new CEO, and headed into the 2025 season, Rapha is sponsoring extra feminine athletes than male athletes.
The momentum in ladies’s sports activities is plain, and Rapha is decided not to simply be a part of it however to paved the way as soon as once more.
“It’s a magic moment for women’s sport where almost anything can happen.”
The ladies’s sports activities momentum
(Symbol credit score: Rapha)
Girls’s sports activities are experiencing an exceptional surge in visibility, funding and fan engagement. In basketball, Caitlin Clark and her friends are electrifying the sport, environment record-breaking viewership and attendance numbers. In football/soccer, the 2023 Girls’s International Cup shattered data with 2 billion audience. In biking, the rebirth of a ladies’s Excursion de France has given ladies’s racing a long-overdue highlight, and commercially, it’s been deemed an “absolute, clear, undeniable success” with announces in 190 nations international and tens of hundreds of thousands of audience for every degree.
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“ I feel it’s this moment where the world’s sort of waking up to the value of that,” stated Poston, acknowledging the industrial alternatives pushed via the unexpectedly rising call for for ladies’s sports activities and lengthening participation developments.
“It’s a really optimistic time for women’s sport in general. It would be really cool if women’s cycling could have a bit of that Caitlin Clark effect that’s happened in America. There are lots of things going on at Rapha at the moment, as well, where we feel this genuine sense of optimism and momentum around the women’s side of the sport.”
Construct it and they’re going to come
(Symbol credit score: Rapha/Dan King)
In fact, Rapha does now not be expecting feminine consumers by myself to push the emblem again into the golf green. Lately, the ratio of its male to feminine consumers is estimated at 3 to one, which is in step with the biking marketplace at huge and in addition the gender break up of this newsletter’s readership.
Male riders needn’t concern – they continue to be Rapha’s precedence primary – however the ladies’s sector is more and more noticed as a a very powerful expansion alternative for the emblem’s long term good fortune.
“ I think we hope, like everyone else in the industry, that we can be part of growing the customer base that are women by encouraging more women to get out on their bike. That’s a big ambition. We want to make that investment. And then we have faith that the customer base will grow as a result of that investment,” Poston defined.
The Girls’s 100 is a chief instance of a a hit initiative to get extra ladies on motorcycles. It’s been occurring for 10 years and rising frequently.
“Rapha’s biggest-ever Women’s 100 last year is another sign of momentum, but we want to move faster. We want to inspire more women to ride by telling the stories that matter, breaking down barriers, and showing the world what women’s cycling really looks and feels like,” stated Christina Lindquist, Rapha’s Advertising and marketing Director
From the outset, Rapha captured the spirit of biking with iconic imagery of good looks paired with grit and backbone. Alternatively, whilst this ‘by us, for us’ means resonated deeply inside the core biking network, it won’t had been as efficient in attracting new consumers to the game. A key a part of Rapha’s technique is recognising the variety amongst its riders and increasing its imaginative and prescient of who the ‘Rapha rider’ may also be.
“Cycling as a whole is a really diverse sport with lots of different tribes. Rapha recognises that there are customers out there who feel underserved or who don’t feel like they resonate with anyone at the moment. We hope that we can address that as well and be the brand that sees them, that innovates for them, that designs for them,” stated Poston, pointing to the emblem’s modest-wear assortment for instance.
This vary of goods features a cycling-specific hijab, full-length pants and loose-fitting tops.
“ Are there currently a huge number of Muslim cyclists looking for a hijab to ride in? No, but there are some and there will be more once that product exists,” Poston stated.
Construct it and they’re going to come.
Can ladies revive Rapha’s profitability?
(Symbol credit score: Rapha)
Rapha understands that ladies by myself gained’t turn the marketplace on its head nevertheless it recognises the immense buying energy and affect this sector holds. Via making an investment in inclusivity, storytelling and community-building, Rapha targets to place itself as the emblem that ladies who motorcycle flip to.
The emblem is making an investment in each ends of the spectrum, supporting starting riders and the sector’s top-tier racers alike. To that finish, it has assembled an outstanding roster of backed athletes, from charismatic EF Professional Biking riders at the ladies’s WorldTour to privateers like world-record breaker Lael Wilcox, the darling of XCO Kate Courtney, and probably the most amusing staff of gravel racers you’d need to be part of. Those athletes might be key in making sure the emblem’s merchandise are world-class whilst serving to form the emblem’s narrative.
The demanding situations going through the biking trade are vital, however Fran Millar is well-suited for the process. Millar has an outstanding monitor list relating to reworking manufacturers. She performed a pivotal position in Staff Sky’s good fortune, guiding the workforce’s upward thrust to dominance with seven Excursion de France wins below her management. Later, as CEO of the suffering British type logo Belstaff, she led a outstanding turnaround, revitalising the attire logo and riding its go back to profitability.
“The longer term is brilliant,” Lindquist concluded. “The longer term is feminine.”
