Rapha Continental with Seven

Recently, Rapha invited Seven Cycles to be part of the Rapha Continental team.  Rapha just posted their 2009 East Coast rider information on their site.  They posted pictures of Seven's Continental bike, an interview with me, and some photos of our shop.  It makes for interesting viewing.

Jeremy Dunn—soon to be expat of the Boston area—connected us with Rapha for this project.  Jeremy also connected us with Continental rider Steve Francisco.

Here are some of the puzzle pieces—and some links:

Rider:  Steve Francisco

Steve is the CEO of design studio JDK.  Steve visited Seven work on his Continental bike.  Seven’s Stef performed the fitting, interview, bike design, and paint scheme.  Working with Steve was great.  He’s an interesting guy and we’re psyched that Seven got picked to work with Steve.  The bike’s design is fairly different from his previous racing bike.  I’m sure it will take some time for him to get used to, but we’re pretty sure the bike will serve him well.

Team:  Rapha Continental

We were pleasantly surprised when Slate Olson and Jeremy allowed us to build a titanium Alaris frame for Steve.  This is the first time that any of the riders will be on a titanium bike rather than steel.  They also allowed us to diverge from their team paint scheme just a bit.  They did a great job with the kit build.  Check it.

Interviewer:  Jeremy Dunn

Jeremy performed the interview.  Calling Jeremy an interviewer is sort of like calling Merckx a bike rider. As always, my conversation with Jeremy was great. I seem to learn a lot every time I talk with him.  We had a bit of a freeform con versation anchored around a list of questions.  Rapha did a great job of keeping the spirit and tone of my conversation with Jeremy.  And they somehow edited out 30-minute conversation down to a manageable read.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

"There’s not a day that I don’t enjoy coming to work. The manufacturing process is fun and our team is great. When it’s all working, the whole process - when a bike is going through and it’s all going well - that’s really cool.” 

Thank you Rapha—particularly Jeremy, Slate, and Steve—for letting us participate in Continental.  It’s going to be an epic season.

Comments

[Alex]

The link to the rapha continental is broken. I want to the bike and the kit :)

[Rob Vandermark]

Alex: Thanks for the heads up. I fixed the links. Those Rapha folks keep updating and improving their site--I can't keep up. I agree that it's a good looking bike!