BEST OF BRITISH
Its name references the cycling heartlands of France and Italy, but Leicestershire brand Vélobici is building a reputation on the proud garment-making history of our own fair isles
Our series on Britain’s leading cycling industry manufacturers continues as we visit Leicestershire’s Vélobici. Despite the Euro name, this brand is British to its core.
It takes two seconds from walking through the door of Vélobici’s immaculate 18th century townhouse shop in the pretty rural Midlands town of Market Bosworth to realise this is a labour of love. Rows of the brand’s signature cycling kit mix with owner Chris Puttnam’s collection of steel racing bikes, attention to detail evident everywhere you look.
It is attention to detail that has seen one man’s vision become something of a byword for British cycle clothing excellence in recent years. Everything Vélobici produces is British to its core.
“Being made in England was a big thing for me,” Chris tells us over a pre-ride coffee in what was once the house’s front room but which now houses most of the brand’s off-bike wear.
“Back when we were looking at various factories we were told that it wasn’t possible to produce our stuff here, that the skills weren’t here anymore and we’d have to go to the Far East, but I knew we had the skills, we just had to find them. It took two years to find the right people to not only make the garments but the fabrics and everything that goes with them. We’re still tweaking and developing new designs and fabrics, but we’re moving in the right direction.
“Our clothing isn’t cheap,” he admits, “but it’s expensive because we use expensive fabrics and it’s made in England. The fabric isn’t cheap, but the cost of the make-up is three times the cost of the fabric. We get comments on social media about our prices – ‘how can you charge £150 for a jersey?’ – but I think if people knew how much making that jersey cost us they’d be astonished.”
Industry with heritage
The cost of this kit isn’t paying for a marketing budget or making Chris a fortune, it’s paying for jobs and skills in one of the UK’s textile heartlands.
“There are others making garments in the Far East, adding some embroidery after it’s been shipped and saying ‘made in England’. They’re not doing anything wrong, but as a brand that does make in England it’s frustrating.”
Not only are Vélobici’s products manufactured in its home country, but within its home region. Everything is produced locally in the east Midlands, and at the end of last year the brand opened its own factory just seven miles from the shop door in Hinckley.
“While we were determined to be made in England it wasn’t such a conscious decision to be as local as possible,” explains Chris, “but the Leicestershire area has a rich heritage in garment making – my dad was in knitwear – so if we were going to get this kit made anywhere then it was going to be around here.
“We’d been using the same factory for about six and a half years to make our garments, but we’ve just recently opened our own a few miles up the road. Our previous factory has been great, and it’s sad to move away, but having our own
place gives us more control over what’s being made and when, and gives us scope to grow. It’s going really well and we’ve just invested in the latest fabric bonding machinery.
“The location means that while everything isn’t quite under one roof it is the next best thing: our embroiderers and printers are within a minute of us.”
Not that much printing goes on with Vélobici’s kit. “Anything polyester you can sublimate on, so all the trade team kits and things like that are printed up that way, but because we use a nylon-based fabric we can’t do that,” says Chris. “That’s why our designs are quite classic, with no printing on them – not that I particularly want to go that way. Our signature embellishments are the jacquard (raised logos knitted into the fabric) and the embroidery. None of it comes cheap, but it’s worth it.”
Having started out with more casual, off-bike wear, over half of Vélobici’s sales are now of its performance road wear. It’s been a gradual transition here, according to Chris, but in the Far East the demand has been instant. “Those markets are huge for us: Japan, Korea, Taiwan,” says Chris, “we have our biggest stockists by far in Taipei and Seoul. I think maybe ‘made in England’ still holds value there.
“It’s great that our performance wear is taking off because what we do is different. We do use different fabrics to other manufacturers, and that’s all produced in Nottingham as well. What they make for us there is second to none, and we’re in the process of developing a mesh because it’s a lot warmer in the Far East than in Britain. Our idea is to develop a mesh that’s still knitted but will be even lighter than the 190g fabric of our lightest jerseys.
“Our signature embellishments are the jacquard and embroidery. None of it comes cheap, but it’s worth it” Chris Puttnam
“One of the reasons these nylon-based fabrics outperform any jersey on the market as far as I’m concerned – no matter how ‘light’ – is because of the UV protection, so we’ll only use the mesh in certain sections, such as the side panels and beneath the back pockets perhaps…”
Must’ve been high
Just how did a keen cyclist with a double-glazing business end up launching such a distinctive brand into the growing cycling market?
“Setting up was a bit of a leap of faith,” says Chris, “and it came about through illness, when in 2008 I had to have my colon removed. I was in a pretty rough state and needed to find something new to focus on, something that I loved, and that was the bike. Throughout the illness riding my bike was the only thing I wanted to do; it gives you that sense of freedom, of escape.
“I was green to the cycle clothing brand business, but I think that was an advantage as if I knew then what I know now, I might not have gone through with it. I must have still been high on the steroids, because I thought, how hard can it be? A lot of money later we’re seeing our sales go up and our profile rise.”
The brand’s growth has been kept in-house, most regularly in the same pair of hands. You’d assume they’re a safe pair if they’re used to handling windows.
“I design the kit myself,” confirms Chris. “If you’ve got an interest in something and you’re determined to make it work you learn how to do it. I like design, so getting to grips with that side of what we do was fun for me.
“Take the design of our pocket, which came about because I wanted something that could be the signature of our brand. People say they can’t use the left pocket [the pocket design swoops across the back of the jersey, so is higher on the left than the right], but if you think about it you can use your right hand for any pocket, plus you can just put the stuff you don’t need unless you’ve stopped in the left pocket. It’s a design feature we value over practicality because it identifies our kit without the need for logos everywhere.”
Shoppers paradise
Most people setting up a small business in the 21st century look at direct sales and online ordering systems in a bid to keep costs down, but while Vélobici has its own website, Chris always wanted the brand to have a bricks and mortar presence – a real-world home, not just a virtual one – which is why we’re here, pulling out a couple of Vélobici-designed and branded Di Luca bikes (see boxout) to ride the local lanes past the site of the famous Battle of Bosworth.
“People like to hold things and feel them,” enthuses Chris, “that’s the major reason we have a shop. When we first set up we were purely online, but we always wanted a shop. It’s only a small part of what we do on the site – our offices are upstairs and that’s where we are most of the time – but it covers everything we do and makes us a destination for people. As well as off-the-street customers it’s a nice place for potential stockists to come, people who want to import our stuff overseas, and see everything that we do. Plus it gives me somewhere to hang my bikes!
“We have stockists, and they work great, but I’ve always been into clothing. I want coming here to be like going to the Paul Smith shop in Nottingham. He’s a Nottingham boy, that’s his shop, and this is ours.
“We do stock a few other bits and brands here in areas where we don’t operate, and Dromarti in particular has been good to us because we’re one of very few stockists of its shoes. We also need to have a few inner tubes and things to hand. If someone is riding by, sees a ‘bike shop’ and needs a tube or to borrow a pump we don’t want to be saying no.”
To the future
“I have a partner in the business now,” adds Chris. “Kevin [Thorp] has put the back-end infrastructure in place because it’s something I’m useless at. Yes, we’d have been selling more stuff, but if he wasn’t involved then eventually it would have all come crashing down. With his help, we can move forward to where we want to be, so I’ve got a lot to thank him for.
“I’ve not previously been very good at looking too far ahead, or looking back at where we’ve come from, but Kev has been great in getting me to do that. On a day-to-day basis there is so much to do that you don’t see or feel the progress, but if you take time to look back at where you were 12 months ago then you do get a feel for how far all that work has brought you. And how far the next year could take you.”
“If you’ ve got an interest in something and you’ re determined to make it work you learn how to do it” Chris Puttnam