July 28, 2025 • 46 mins
In this conversation, Jim Evans, the product manager at Adventure Spec, shares insights into the company's evolution from a distributor to a manufacturer of motorcycle gear. He discusses the challenges and triumphs of adventure riding, the importance of customer service, and the innovative approach to product development that Adventure Spec employs. The conversation highlights the small but efficient team behind the brand and their commitment to creating durable and repairable products for adventure riders. In this conversation, Jim discusses the evolution of women's outdoor gear, the challenges faced in production, and the importance of representation in marketing. He highlights the innovations in motorcycle gear for women, the significance of training women riders, and the exciting new product developments at Adventure Spec. The discussion also touches on the evolution of layering systems, future aspirations for the company, and the pressing issue of sustainability in the motorcycle industry.
Adventure Spec, motorcycle gear, product development, customer service, outdoor industry, riding experiences, company history, equipment challenges, product strategy, market positioning, women's outdoor gear, motorcycle clothing, product development, adventure riding, layering systems, sustainability, women's representation, motorcycle training, gear innovations, Adventure Spec
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Trail and Adventure
Motorbike Podcast with me CliveBarber and my good mate Noel
Tom.
For the days when you can't rideyour bike there's always the
Trail and Adventure MotorbikePodcast.
UNKNOWN (00:17):
Music
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Welcome back chaps, this is a pretty special episode
for us today and hopefully foryou too.
It's an episode of two halves.
In the first half we aredelighted to announce a new
partnership with our really goodfriends at Adventure Spec.
As you know we've had a verylong relationship with Adventure
Spec so it's probably nosurprise to most of you that we
(00:41):
are partnering for at least thenext 12 months.
In the first part, we talk aboutour experiences using Adventure
Spec kit.
And then in the second part, wetalk to Jim Evans, who is the
product manager at AdventureSpec.
We talk about what goes intomaking some of the best kit
available on the market today.
(01:01):
Right, let's get on with it.
UNKNOWN (01:03):
Adventure Spec
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
So do you actually see yourself as a sponsored
rider now?
SPEAKER_02 (01:10):
I've always seen myself as a sponsored rider, but
it's just been a delusionalthing on my part, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
What can I tell you?
I'm fully in agreement.
So I think the lovely thing iswhen Greg started working for
Adventure Spec, Adventure Spechas changed quite a lot over
that period of time.
I mean, they were just sellingother people's stuff and then
they started to make their ownstuff.
And now they're exclusivelyselling their own kit, whether
that's hard parts or theirlayering system of clothing.
(01:35):
As a very small UK-basedcompany, I think this would
surprise a lot of people, howsmall Adventure Spec is, the
number of people that actuallywork there, because they've got
media presence and awareness outin the market.
place that people realizethere's like six people that
work there they would be quitesurprised
SPEAKER_02 (01:53):
i know they could see behind the the wizard's
curtain i think they'd besurprised but that's quite a
good thing i think i wouldn'tsay it's a family business but
it has that kind of ethos behindit a little bit doesn't it for
its numbers it's not a bigmachine
SPEAKER_01 (02:05):
i think the first bit of kit i ever got was the
baltic insulated jacket and ithink i've had that for eight
years now and i still actuallywear that still holding up
pretty well
SPEAKER_02 (02:14):
it's part of my smart going out gear
SPEAKER_01 (02:17):
It is.
It's my going to the cinemajacket.
One of my favourite bits of kitactually is the super shirt
because that is basically thefirst thing I always grab.
I pretty much wear that everytime I go out.
Once you've got that on, it's AArated, you can pretty much wear
anything you want, can't
SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
you?
That's your next dilemma, isn'tit, is what to wear over the top
of it.
I'm going away in July andAugust into roasting hot Europe.
I was sort of panicking aboutthe temperature and then I
remembered, I've got a supershirt.
All I've got to think about nowis what to wear over the top of
it.
And I'm not going to look like astupid British biker covered in
textile gear because I'll havesome kind of trendy checked
shirt on and a super shirtunderneath.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
When we went out for chips the other day, I look like
a proper hipster with my checkedshirt over the top of my super
shirt.
And it's all you need.
It's
SPEAKER_02 (03:02):
hard to believe, isn't it?
But then we did see them throwthat poor man down the...
the runway wearing one, didn'twe?
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
As far as I know, they're the only company that
have actually tested theirprotective gear.
A human being, rather than justrubbing it against some
sandpaper.
But that was actually quiteimpressive.
And I think there's a video ofthem somewhere as well.
trying to cut one with a bladeas well.
It's pretty impressive stuff.
I think material science isabsolutely fascinating that you
can now make things like thatthat are as AA rated.
(03:30):
That's quite impressive.
You're a fan of the linesmanpant, aren't you?
SPEAKER_02 (03:33):
Linesman pant and linesman jacket.
Linesman jacket.
I look great in a linesmanjacket with the shoulder pads.
You've been the...
top model for quite a long time,haven't you?
Well, yeah, he was a top model,but then it got unceremoniously
dropped when that bloke withtattoos came along.
So how old are you?
Well, maybe that.
Maybe as my looks faded, I wascast aside.
(03:53):
Your modelling career went onlonger than mine.
I think as I left, you walked inthe door.
SPEAKER_01 (03:58):
The way it's worked for me is anything that fits a
fat bloke, it's usually me.
Ah, right.
Look at how stretchy this is.
The fat bloke can wear that.
The other thing I always carrywith me is the aqua pack.
jacket that either goes in arucksack or in a bag somewhere
on the bike because it isinsanely waterproof.
(04:19):
All of the Adventure Specwaterproof stuff is at least
20,000 millimetres hydrostatichead.
What does that even mean?
I don't know.
Google it.
It's a big number, isn't it?
It's a big number.
All you need to sell awaterproof jacket, trading
standards type rules, is youneed to have a hydrostatic head
of 1,500 millimetres.
(04:40):
The AS stuff is at least 28,000millimetre hydrostatic head.
You're
SPEAKER_02 (04:45):
just saying numbers now.
Should we stumble around andguess what it is?
I think it's pushing waterthrough the fabric and it's
something to do with the sort ofthe pressure that you're putting
on it before that.
Those water molecules go through
SPEAKER_01 (04:56):
it.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Whatever it means, it means thatthat jacket is completely
waterproof.
So I've ridden for nine hourswearing that jacket and it
doesn't leak one bit.
SPEAKER_02 (05:05):
How good are you at putting waterproofs on before it
starts raining?
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
Not so good, because you always hope that you're
actually
SPEAKER_02 (05:11):
going to...
Never happens.
SPEAKER_01 (05:12):
The other thing is, obviously, what they're doing is
they say they're creatinglightweight outdoors gear for
adventure motorcyclists.
And it's all about that layeringsystem that's been used for
years in traditional sort ofoutdoor gear.
And I think they're really oneof the first companies to
actually...
Get a complete range of clothesthat they've actually got now to
(05:34):
support that theory.
Once you get off-road, you gethot and sweaty, so you can take
layers off.
Whereas if you've got your bigbulky jacket on, it makes it
more difficult to do that.
I've got the linesman, I've gotthe Mongolia jacket, I've got
both of the waterproof jackets,so I can kind of pick and choose
what I take out with me.
I think Adventure Spec as awhole are there purely for...
(05:55):
us adventure and trail riders.
That's their niche.
That's what they focused on.
They all ride, they all traveland they all trail ride.
So what they've actually createdis something very, very specific
for us.
We've been fans of their stufffor years and it's just really
nice that they're now supportingus as well.
So go and check them out atadventurespec.com and sign up to
(06:18):
the newsletter, which is, it'sactually one of, I've said it
before on the podcast, it's oneof the best newsletters out
there It gives you lots ofinteresting things to look at or
to read.
And there's like one advert fora bit of a product at the end of
it.
So get yourself signed up forthat and check out the stuff on
adventurespec.com.
SPEAKER_03 (06:39):
We took the Himalayan that we got for
Adventure Spec to Wales for astaff trip and burnt the clutch
out.
That sounds like user error,though.
I wasn't riding it, so I can'tsay anything.
So I trailed it straight to thedealer and he kind of went, oh,
what's wrong with this then?
Well, we think we've burnt theclutch out.
He started it up and went, yep,you have.
How many miles is it on?
115.
I said, is that the lowestyou've had for a clutch?
(07:00):
He said, no, I've had lower.
SPEAKER_01 (07:01):
Was Greg riding it by any chance?
Mr.
Clutchburner himself?
SPEAKER_03 (07:06):
No, he wasn't.
It was on his photo bike, as hecalls it.
We went over Bomber Lane andthen we went Happy Valley, both
directions.
And then we went up the otherside of Happy Valley on the main
tech.
To be honest, those trails areprobably at the limit of that
size of bike, unless you're aphenomenal rider.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
Come on, you can tell us who was riding it.
Was it somebody inexperienced orwas it Adam, the bike destroyer?
No,
SPEAKER_02 (07:27):
no, it wasn't Adam.
It wasn't Adam.
But did that person, whoever itmay be, or she, women can ride
bikes too, I keep telling Clivethat, were they surprised?
Had they been dragging theclutch a lot, do you think?
SPEAKER_03 (07:37):
They didn't think they had.
Talking to Chris afterwards, hethinks the trail that we're
doing, because it's so steep andpebbly and stuff like that,
really, we should have gone downa sprocket just to give it more
torque and stuff like that.
We had a CF motor as well, andthat clutch had started to go as
well.
Again, 200-kilo bike on thatsort of terrain and stuff like
that.
But to be fair, they didphenomenally well until
(07:58):
Himalayan's clutch went.
SPEAKER_01 (08:00):
I talked to John Mitchinson about adjusting the
gearing on my CRF to try and geta more usable second gear, and
he just went, nah, stick it infirst and rev the nuts off it.
UNKNOWN (08:15):
LAUGHTER
SPEAKER_01 (08:16):
But we are absolutely delighted to welcome
new boy from Adventure Spec, JimEvans.
Well, you're not that new,actually.
You've been there for a while,Jim, haven't you?
SPEAKER_03 (08:25):
I've been there for just over a year on and off now,
but now working full time forthe last nearly six
SPEAKER_01 (08:29):
months.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, your riding history,
and what you do for AdventureSpec, and maybe a little bit
about your work history, becausethat's obviously very relevant
to what you're doing now atAdventure Spec.
SPEAKER_03 (08:42):
My name's Jim Evans.
I'm product manager forAdventure Spec, but for the
last...
30 years I've exclusively workedin the outdoor industry for some
famous brands, Trekmates, Rab,Sprayway, Bridgedale, also a
founder of Outkit, which was thefirst direct-to-consumer outdoor
brand.
And that's where I first kind ofcame across Adventure Spec.
I can't remember if it was Daveor Chris gave us a ring, but was
(09:02):
asking if we could make somestuff for them.
I've got a bit of a checkeredhistory of riding.
I kind of did my test and likeeveryone else, I've got quite a
connection to Long Way Roundbecause I was working in the
outdoor industry and theyobviously wanted kit.
So I ended up supplying some drybags and bits and pieces through
Snow and Rock, I think it was,the brand I was working for at
the time.
As you do, you then watch it andthat looks exciting.
(09:25):
I want a bit of that.
And then we started Outkit andthen GS after GS after GS kept
turning up, getting Camping Kitand then setting off to Morocco
and just seeding that All thetime.
And then opportunity arose thatI could do my bike test.
So I went and got that GS.
Holy shit.
It was a big bike.
I didn't just go through GS.
I went to the GSA with all thealuminium panniers and then put
all my cycling kit as was.
(09:47):
I was quite big into bikepackinginto half a pannier.
SPEAKER_01 (09:50):
It's not bikepacking.
I'm sorry.
It's called cycle touring.
No, no bikepacking.
No, Jim, you're old enough toknow better.
Come on.
I was at the forefront ofbikepacking.
Well, I was at the forefront ofcycle touring and it's exactly
the same thing!
SPEAKER_02 (10:02):
Why do you like bikepacking?
Do you just feel like it's beenneedlessly rebranded?
SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
Yeah, it's just all these young people coming along
and thinking, oh, look at us onour bikes going cycle touring
with our packs on our bike.
It's cycle touring.
You've just got ridiculousluggage.
Can
SPEAKER_02 (10:17):
you see that?
Yeah, sort of.
They're both kind of new termsto me.
SPEAKER_03 (10:20):
See, I think there's a real synergy between
bikepacking and adventure specand the tech.
SPEAKER_01 (10:24):
I've got a problem with the word synergy as well.
SPEAKER_03 (10:29):
It's going to be a long night, this.
For me, that whole bikepackingwas about loading your bike to
minimise the effect of theluggage on the bike so you could
ride roads, trails, the trailsthat you're riding without
luggage.
Now I've kind of come over tothe sort of motorcycle world.
I've taken the GS and I'd saythe GS with aluminium panniers
is very much sits in that cycletouring world, if you see what I
(10:50):
mean.
Yeah, it's a capable bike.
You could take it off road withaluminium panniers, but you're
immediately compromised just bythe weight of your luggage.
So for me, that getting asmaller capacity bike, lighter,
loading it with less kit allowsyou to then carry on riding
those trails.
So I think for me, there's thisreally nice synergy between,
I'll use that word again,bikepacking and...
Don't worry, I'll beep it out.
(11:11):
And sort of riding the tech,riding trails and stuff like
that, being able to ride theroads or the trail or go
wherever you want with the bike.
SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
Had you tried other bikes or did you just have the
1200 in mind because of whatyou'd seen and you just stuck
with that dream?
SPEAKER_03 (11:23):
In fact, actually, no, I didn't get the GSA
straight away.
I shit myself because I went tothe showroom and went, holy
shit, this is massive and boughta Triumph Tiger 800.
I then went, booked myself ontothe GS off-road school, sitting
there with Simon Pavey doing histhing and we're all sitting in
front of a GS...
And I'm going, I've never sat onone of these, let alone ride
one.
And he puts his hand, haseveryone ridden a GS?
And obviously everyone putstheir hands up.
(11:44):
Anyone not?
And I kind of subtly put my handup.
No, I've got a clue.
But from that moment on, yourealised how capable of a bike
they are and how much easier itwas to ride than the Triumph
that I had.
I chatted to Greg.
Through COVID, I watched all hisfilms with you guys in it and
stuff.
And he was waxing lyrical aboutsleeping bags and how good
synthetic sleeping bags was.
(12:05):
And I was working for Rab at thetime and I'm a down sleeping bag
convert.
So I thought, well, I need toput Greg in his place here.
He might know everything heknows about motorbikes, but he
doesn't know about sleepingbags.
So I sent him a sleeping bag andgot talking to him.
I went to ABR.
I ended up camping next to Will.
So I got to know Will.
I'm just chatting to him.
I'm from Cambridge.
So we had quite a mutual...
talking about Cambridge and bitslike that.
(12:26):
And then suddenly there was thisclick that he rides with Greg
and I'd just been speaking toGreg.
And Will had his 690.
So I sat on his 690 and therefell apart the dreams of GSs.
And I have a 690 in the garagenow.
Kind of looks very similar toWill's.
SPEAKER_01 (12:45):
Tell us a little bit More about your role at
Adventure Spec.
What do you do as the productmanager?
SPEAKER_03 (12:50):
It's quite a varied role, actually.
Adventure Spec isn't a bigcompany.
There's not many of us there.
So effectively, I've taken oneverything there is to do about
product.
So that's kind of looking at ourproduct story.
And I'll use another twatty wordof product vision about product.
what products we might do in thefuture, what products we do now,
and actually how we can linkthose products together and how
we can talk about them.
(13:10):
So I work really closely withGreg on that side of it.
I then work really closely withall our suppliers.
So we've got two main factoriesin Europe that we use for our
hard parts and our soft goods,so luggage and clothing.
And then we use a few FarEastern suppliers as well.
So I liaise with all of those.
I liaise with product designersif we need a product designer,
or I might kind of take on thatproduct development myself,
(13:32):
depending...
where it is.
I'm quite handy on a sewingmachine.
That was my background atOutkit.
We started a little microfactory at Outkit.
So I'm quite handy at jumping ona sewing machine and just trial
and error and making stuff.
And I find that really excitingand fun.
Effectively, anything to do withproduct, it's me.
And then as I've got a bit of aside gig that anything to do
with shows, I kind of take on aswell.
(13:53):
Throughout my career, I've kindof worn two hats as either a A
frustrated product designer.
That's what I always wanted tobe as a kid.
I did my A-levels dreaming thatI was going to go and draw Hanes
manuals.
What a wasted job that wouldhave been today.
But that's what I dreamt ofdrawing, Hanes manuals by hand.
I pursued that career and then Iwent into a job and I was the
only one that could use a Mac inthe corner.
(14:14):
So I ended up kind of learning abit about marketing.
And from that, I've done shows.
So I kind of always worn thesesort of two hats of marketing
and product.
When I started working at Rab, amarketing director there, I
worked so closely with theproduct director and the two of
us were really on the samewavelength and realizing how
much those roles areintertwined.
If so many businesses areseparated, they might have some
people in the product team thatmaybe do some product research.
(14:37):
Product and marketing are sointerlinked and the companies
that do that well, you can seeit a mile off.
They understand what theircustomers want before they even
make the product.
SPEAKER_01 (14:45):
We'll come back to the product stuff in a minute.
But one thing you mentioned wasthe size of the team at
Adventure Spec.
Now, Adventure Spec comes acrossoutwardly like a very big
British manufacturing companyproducing this amazing kit.
But the reality is the team isactually very small, isn't it?
If you exclude the manufacturingthat happens in Europe.
SPEAKER_03 (15:03):
So currently there's six of us at Adventure Spec.
So it's a pretty small business.
However, quite a lot of ourcentral functions are
outsourced.
So we have three warehouses inthe US, EU and the UK.
UK, but they're all outsourcedas third-party warehouses.
So we don't have any warehousestaff and stuff like that that a
business might have.
So the team is just a core team,really.
(15:25):
So I look after product.
Greg looks after the brand andmarketing.
We've got Adam and Ben in ourhelp desk and customer service
team.
And Chris, obviously, founder ofVentureSpec, keeps us all on the
right track.
And then we've got Stephen thatworks on our systems, helping
Chris with orders.
Very much the sort of nuts andbolts in our backend system.
We've got a really good Yeah,you're right.
(15:50):
AdventureSpec is not big in sizeof people.
SPEAKER_02 (16:10):
Was it COVID that changed that and made everything
remote as it has done witheverybody else?
SPEAKER_03 (16:14):
Yeah, once COVID hit and everybody was working
remotely, they couldn'tnecessarily always ship stuff
out.
Chris embarked on a really bigproject pretty much by himself,
really, to find a computersystem that could link to three
separate warehouses that couldlink all the customer service
help desk stuff together and thewebsite.
And it's a pretty sizableproject.
I've come from some bigcompanies into Adventure Spec
(16:36):
and seen what Chris has done.
And hats off to him.
It means we can grow reallyeffectively and scalably and
sustainably by bringing morestaff in.
SPEAKER_01 (16:45):
Another thing that has changed dramatically in a
very positive way is customerservice because Adventure Spec
didn't always have the bestreputation for customer service
and I think you mentioned Adamand Ben and that reputation has
pretty much done a 180 degreeturn and I see mostly good
feedback these days.
SPEAKER_03 (17:01):
Yeah, I think Adam led I say Adam led that charge.
I guess Chris and Greg led thatcharge and identified something
had to change in the help deskand with our customer service.
So they recruited Adam and Adamcame on board and his background
has been very serviceorientated.
Again, similar to me, he'd comefrom the cycle industry, working
in bike shops, some of the stuffhe'd done.
And Adam's got an amazing amountof fairness.
(17:22):
I was talking to Steve at MotorJunkies this weekend, actually,
because he's got the first pairof single track pants that were
ever made that Greg gave him.
And he reckons he's done 25,000kilometres on those.
And they look beat up, but theylook nicely beat up, if you see
what I mean.
And I said, I want them back.
And he's like, I don't want togive them back.
They're so comfortable.
But you've trashed the bottom ofthem and I want to see how I can
make them better.
If we can get a product thatlasts a season with a guide,
(17:45):
that should be a few years useof a normal rider, if you see
what I mean.
You can make a piece of kitabsolutely bomb proof, but it
won't be very comfortable towear.
So you've got to take this sortof this pragmatic balance, if
you see what I mean.
And Adam is really, really goodat that of saying, maybe you've
worn it a little bit hard.
Okay, we'll try and organise arepair for you or send that one
back and I'll do yourreplacement and give you a
(18:05):
discount.
But it's also fair on a venturespec.
You know, you can bankrupt acompany really, really quickly
if you just say, anytime anyonegets in contact with us, we're
just going to replace it.
And I work really, reallyclosely with Adam and Ben to get
that product feedback, to getthe product feedback of how I
can make a product better, butalso to assist them to sort of,
has that product been usedcorrectly or has someone used it
(18:26):
differently?
Try and understand that.
Why is something worn in aparticular place?
Knee braces and foot pegs areprobably the two You know, we've
probably got a test pool of 10riders and maybe a piece of kit
will get a year to two yearsworth of development and riding
on different people before itgoes into production.
But knee braces, we can't testfor every single knee brace that
comes underneath.
We kind of call them grippers.
(18:47):
There's certain riders that wearknee braces and then they grip
their bike unbelievably tight.
You've now got a piece of fabricbetween either a hard piece of
plastic or a hard piece of metalagainst the metal frame of the
bike.
And then they say, oh, mytrousers are worn out between
it.
Like, or course they have,you're just basically grinding
the fabric away.
We knew Adam first, didn't we?
Adam's part of our board ofdirectors
SPEAKER_02 (19:06):
on the podcast as well, and we've known him a long
time, and I can imagine he'sfantastic at that job, because
he is a very, very sensible,fair-minded person, as you say.
SPEAKER_01 (19:15):
I had a pair of Merino leggings I wore when it
was cold, and I was a bitannoyed, because after a few
months, one of the knees hadvirtually worn through.
In the warm weather, I wasriding with the same trousers,
and it was like something wasreally...
scratching my knee and irealized like a bit of velcro
was actually sticking out so iwas going to send them back
saying these are shit but then irealized it was my own fault for
(19:37):
not tucking the velcro awayproperly tell us a little bit
more about the history ofadventure spec because it's gone
from being a company that sortof supplied third-party kit that
chris and dave used for theirtrips to a company that now
pretty much only sells stuffthat it manufactures
SPEAKER_03 (19:53):
adventure specs coming up for 20 years old and
like you say was founded by bydave and chris who would really
earn early pioneers of ridinglighter bikes with lighter kit
on trails, really.
Been banging this drum for 20years.
Chris and Dave were at the firstmeeting of Horizons Unlimited.
They were there with John Rosswhen they set the TET up and
helped John fund the starting ofthe TET.
(20:15):
For such a small company,they've had such an influence on
this sort of trail and adventuremarket.
It was really interesting to seeABR that was just finished.
We had a stand at ABR.
So what was there?
17,500 people at ABR this year.
I mean, it was phenomenal.
I went to the first ABR with 70of us in a field.
To go to ABR and be on a stand,17,500 people.
(20:36):
I walk around the stalls and itwasn't full of GSs with
aluminium frames around them andstuff like that.
And this is the drum Dave andChris have been banging for so,
so long.
And then to see ABR...
evolve into effectively whatthey've been talking about for
so long is brilliant.
And now to be part of that withAdventure Spec and my role as
(20:56):
the sort of the product managerto now say, you know, where can
we take Adventure Spec now?
You know, the market's caught upwith Adventure Spec.
You're no longer distributingall these brands.
We've got our own range now.
Yeah, big up for Chris and Dave.
You know, they were so far aheadof the curve when they started
to work with Chris and reallysort of say, how's it feel to be
in a field with 17,500 peopleand think, you created some of
(21:19):
this.
SPEAKER_01 (21:19):
It's really interesting for you to say that
because I remember when Istarted trail riding many years
ago, there wasn't really theequivalent of an adventure spec.
I used to wear motocross stuffAnd I used to wear a mountain
bike waterproof or pack amountain bike waterproof to go
over the top if it was raining.
And they just weren't waterprooftrousers back then, really.
(21:41):
It was very difficult to get kitthat actually worked.
And it is amazing that a smallcompany like Adventure Spec have
actually...
designed kit for exactly what wedo not only exactly what we do
as in trail riding but you cantravel the world in this kit as
well you mentioned the magadanpanniers designed so they can be
repaired in the remotest partsof the world right you can if
(22:03):
anybody's got a sewing machineor a needle and thread you can
you can patch them up and fixthem if you fall
SPEAKER_03 (22:09):
off the great thing now i think is that we can call
them competitors or i can callthem competitors but the nice
thing now is how many morebrands are in that space which
is only increasing the theamount of people that want that
kit they just have to look atthe rise of the TET now because
I kind of inherited theAdventure Spec shows.
I was going through the graphicsand there was a graphic there
for the TET and it said 88,000kilometres.
Great, well, I can't use thatnow.
(22:29):
It's well over 100.
And even in my kind of sort offormer life of making
bikepacking kit.
Cycle touring.
The TET's now being used bycyclists to choose routes
because ironically, the TET isreasonably easy to cycle on a
bike.
It's not too technical a trail.
SPEAKER_01 (22:44):
Yeah, just watch out there.
There's motorbikes comingthrough.
Get out of the fucking way anddon't ride too aggressive, you
knobheads.
So at some point then, you haveincreased the range of products
that Adventure Spec produced.
I think the first things youproduced was the linesman
jacket, wasn't it?
And you've expanded the rangesince then.
(23:04):
How do you decide what you'regoing to produce next?
SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
That's a tricky question.
Sometimes it's, can you make it?
You know, you might have quite afew products being developed at
the same time and one...
sort of bubbles to the surfacequicker than others.
I think the nice thing workingfor Adventure Spec, very, very
similar to working at Alpkit,that the product development
cycle is very natural and youdevelop the products that you
want to do because you're goingto sell them to the end
(23:30):
customer.
When I was working for outdoorbrands that sold through shops,
it was very constrained.
You were working quite often offExcel spreadsheets because a
certain customer buys a productand they buy thousands of them.
You don't touch that product.
You don't take the colors ofthat product.
There's no appetite to improvethat product.
It's selling as it is.
Whereas selling direct toconsumer and not having to talk
(23:52):
to three or four buyers, that'swhy we started AlpKit.
you know, totally in the outdoorindustry, you can count them on
your hand, the amount of buyersthat really control the products
that get made, that allow thosenumbers.
So, you know, the buyers for thebigger chains or the more
influential sort ofindependents, if they don't like
that product, it doesn't go tomarket.
And therefore, the sort ofranging within those brands
(24:15):
takes a lot longer.
So it might take, you know,sometimes three years from an
idea to come to where you thenlaunch it to the retailer.
And then you've got another yearbefore it makes it into the
shop.
Whereas with, AdventureSpec andOutKit, you don't have to jump
through those hoops, how wechoose what products to bring.
So I've just been working on adocument that would effectively
(24:35):
a product timeline forAdventureSpec.
And at the moment, I've reallyjust kind of looked, where's
some natural holes that wehaven't got product in?
What are people asking for?
How can we improve product, ifyou see what I mean?
Because sometimes you canimprove a product.
So SuperShirt was the firstproduct that I kind of worked on
to improve.
Working with the factory, wekind of resourced the fabric,
which allowed us to buy itcheaper.
(24:56):
And ironically, it's now madeabout three miles away from a
house.
So the fabric the super shirt'smade of is made in the UK.
It's then shipped out to ourfactory in Bulgaria and made
into the super shirt.
Through quite a workbookexercise, we've managed to
reduce the cost of that supershirt to get that sweet spot.
And that's suddenly taken thesuper shirt off.
Off the back of that, I'mlooking at a super pant, which
(25:18):
effectively a pair of leggingsmade out of the same fabric.
And one of the major purposes ofthat was to expand into kit that
we can make for women.
It's a really emotive subject.
It's something I'm really proudto have been through in the
outdoor industry.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Has there always been an issue with women's
clothing that the numbers justweren't there to make it viable
for a manufacturer?
SPEAKER_03 (25:36):
Essentially, yeah, yeah.
You either had to be reallybrave and put your money where
your mouth was and buy lots ofkit, which lots of brands have
done.
You see it in the motorcycleindustry.
Lots of brands have jumped intothe women's sector, done some
amazing clothing, And then asquickly as they've come into it,
have dropped it because thesales weren't there.
Some of that is because thegatekeepers are still the
(25:58):
retailers.
And if the retailers don't buyit and come through, sometimes
the retailers will buy it.
If there aren't enough riders tobuy it, or for whatever reason
they don't know about it, or itall gets sold on clearance,
you're back to square one.
Well, this is the
SPEAKER_01 (26:11):
other thing, isn't it?
I think people don't kind ofrealise, it's the same with my
wife's business, that you're nota massive company, you're not an
Alpine Stars, you can't lay outhundreds of thousands of pounds
to produce a product that thendoesn't sell.
It's the same thing withcolours.
You have to limit the number ofcolours you make, because if you
end up with one colour thatnobody likes, then you're just
going to end up with a load ofstock That you can't sell,
(26:32):
basically.
SPEAKER_03 (26:32):
Or you end up with a load of fabric that you can't
turn into something.
So it's even deader stocksometimes.
Again, kind of hats off toChris, because one of the things
I came in and said, I thinkthere's a real opportunity for
you to do women's wear here andfor us to take a lead on it.
He's like, we can, but thenumbers are tricky.
In our trousers, we do from 28inch to 44 inch in three lengths
(26:55):
in all of those trousers.
I can't promise that all ofthose trousers are going to be
in stock at all the times.
but they have all been made.
There's a huge size range oftrousers that are already there.
The first job I did when I tookon the, let's call it the
women's project, was just tryingour kit on women as it is before
we do anything, before we changeanything.
And actually the linesman pantis a hands down women with
(27:18):
women.
It's not a flattering pant, butmotorcycling pants aren't.
You know, they've got to have ahigh waist for the protection
that they offer.
So actually the linesman pant,we found that we didn't really
have to do anything for that.
Because we've got the short legand we do it in a wide range of
sizes and that fabric's gotstretch in it, it works really,
really well.
Same with the super shirt.
We've introduced an extra small.
(27:39):
So the sizing on the super shirtnow goes from extra small.
It may even go to double extrasmall if we think we need to up
to triple XL.
And because the super shirt'sgot so much stretch in it,
actually trying it on a lot ofwomen, it's not going to fit
everybody.
It doesn't fit every man.
But I've made some tweaks to thesmaller sizes because some of
the smaller sizes weren'tfitting some men as well.
Try and fit the bell curve ofmost of the people that are
(27:59):
riding.
So our women's project is reallylooking at this unisex sizing
and how can we increase theamount of sizing we're doing
without doubling the amount ofSKUs.
SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
What's coming next?
What's in development?
Tell us all the good stuff.
SPEAKER_03 (28:17):
Superpant.
which is a legging version ofthe super shirt.
We'll look to get that certifiedto AA.
And I think super pant will bereally liberating for female
riders as well becauseeffectively they can wear that
on the bottom and then they canaccess, you know, the outdoor
industry for trousers to go overthe top.
Wearing it over the weekend, itwas roasting hot.
I mean, I had the super pant onand a pair of trousers over the
(28:38):
top, but when I was riding, Iwasn't, wasn't overheating.
The rest of the team all hadMongolia kit on and I think I
was as comfortable as they were.
But the nice thing, when we gotto the campsite, I could just
take the super pants off andI've got my trousers on.
SPEAKER_02 (28:50):
That was with very soft knee armour and soft
SPEAKER_03 (28:53):
armour in the hips as well.
Yeah, yes.
They've got a coccyx pad in themas well.
So hip pads, knee pads and thena coccyx armor in them as well.
Mongolia, I've been working alot on.
So the guys were in the Mongoliakit.
So that's the new Mongolia 2.0s.
It's just going through CEtesting at the moment.
So that's a nice kind of stageon from the Mongolia and Atacama
kit that we had that wasdeveloped with Lyndon.
(29:15):
Still taking that Rallyheritage, but now we've taken it
on board of how can we createkits that can be used on
multi-day adventures, or you'regoing to go off on a GS around
the world, how could you wearthe Mongolia?
And how can we take thatlayering principle in that and
move it forward?
SPEAKER_01 (29:31):
No, there's a question for you and I.
I don't know the answer to this.
I hope Jim does know the answerto this.
I'll know.
You know everything.
You've got the knowledge.
There's a concept we need toexpand on.
What would you say is the mostpopular, the biggest selling
product?
two pieces of Adventure Speckit.
SPEAKER_02 (29:47):
I'm guessing this one.
Well, it's easy, isn't it?
It's going to be the linesmanand the linesman pant.
SPEAKER_01 (29:51):
That's what I was going to say.
Yeah, the two linesman things.
Or is it now the super shirt?
SPEAKER_03 (29:55):
Is it super shirt and linesman pant or R2?
Two big winners.
Really?
Not the linesman jacket?
It sells well.
Kind of number three, really,alongside.
There's quite a few that tie forthat number three, but a super
shirt and linesman pants are thetwo.
And I think that's reallybecause there's quite a few
people that do something similarto the linesman jacket.
SPEAKER_02 (30:13):
I always pick it off the rail.
I picked it off the railrecently for my road trip to the
Alps.
And mainly because the pocketsare fantastic in it.
And especially the pocket on theinside.
Just put so much in it.
That's what I love about it, isthat big bits...
can go in those huge pockets, aswell as it being nice and cool.
SPEAKER_01 (30:34):
Traditionally, again, going back to when I
started riding, it was motocrossgear or the big Heineken suits
that had multiple layers.
Because we ride off-road...
You get too hot in somethinglike that.
Even in the winter, you can gettoo hot in something like that.
So I'm not even sure we need totalk about layering.
It's just such an obvious,blooming thing.
It seems like some of the biggercompanies are now picking up on,
(30:56):
which Adventures Pick have beendoing for years, right?
SPEAKER_03 (30:59):
A lot of brands in the outdoor industry, it took
them a long time to cotton ontothe layering system.
And now that's standard inoutdoor.
And when I came intomotorcycling and I bought my
first...
adventure suit.
It was waterproof and insulated.
Then you go, well, hang on aminute, it just kind of is
waterproof.
I've got to zip this thing in,but the outside's getting
soaking wet.
It was kind of really nice toget to know Adventure Spec and
(31:19):
the layering system and reallyunderstand the principle behind
the layering system because it'sall about comfort and it's all
about safety.
If you're wearing a big bulkysuit, you just haven't got as
much movement.
All those layers on the roadwhen you're riding to the trail.
So when you get to the trail,you're not freezing cold.
And when you get on the trail,you're not overheating.
I'm a real product geek.
And I love testing fabrics,understanding how fabrics work,
(31:40):
understand how materials workand stuff like that.
The CE testing for products hasbeen really interesting to
understand that and starting tounderstand how layering works
for protection as well.
The Super Shirt goes in fortesting and we've tested that to
AA, which effectively is up tosort of those 40, 50 mile an
hour speeds.
That's what the Super Shirt isdesigned to be crashed in.
(32:03):
But if you put the linesman overthe top of it, you've now got a
AA protection.
with a single A rating over thetop, that's going to be better
to crash in than the Supershirton its own.
But that's led me into lots ofresearch around the old
Cambridge test and leathers andthe research there that they
found that crashing in leathersthat the riders were all getting
burnt because the vibrations ofthe leather so bike races were
(32:23):
then mandated they had to wear asilk undergarments underneath
the leather to stop them gettingburnt so there's all this sort
of stuff that I'm starting tolearn about how the clothing you
wear crashes if you see what Imean and how building those
layers up and again came back tocycling you know when I started
cycling and cycle racing I wasalways told to wear an under
jersey you're still going to getroad rash but you don't get it
as bad So actually, when you goback to sort of this principle
(32:46):
of layering that Dave and Chrisbought into motorcycling, yes,
it was about comfort, both hotand cold, but it was also about
safety.
So the idea of wearing thelinesman jackets with the arms
on, riding to the trail, oh, I'mat the trail, now I'm going to
take the arms off.
Injury mechanisms change.
If you crash on the road, you'reprobably going to be at high
speed and you're going to slidefor a long way.
(33:06):
If you crash on a trail, you'reat low speed, but you're going
to hit the deck pretty hard.
And the injuries that peoplesustain change.
Actually, layering starts toreally play into that as well.
And the super shirt and thesuper pant will kind of play off
that.
SPEAKER_01 (33:17):
Right, Noel, maybe I'll answer this, but I'll give
you a chance to think about it.
What is the next product thatyou want Adventure Spec to
develop?
I would like some lightweightwaterproof over trousers.
I know you do the single trackpants.
but they're a fairly beefy itemwhich you'd probably put on and
wear all day.
I want something I can screw upand put in my five litre little
(33:40):
bag that I've got my waterproofkit in.
And I want it to be aswaterproof as your waterproof
jackets, which are insanelywaterproof.
And that was my second question,is I want you to talk about your
waterproof ratings as well.
SPEAKER_03 (33:52):
So I was trying to give you a sneak peek, but there
might be a pair on my rackbehind me here of Aquapack
pants.
SPEAKER_01 (33:58):
I genuinely didn't know you
SPEAKER_03 (34:00):
were doing those.
Aquapack jacket and Aquapackpant are both on my...
my list of products to develop.
And again, I kind of walk in atightrope here because I know
whatever pair of pants that Idevelop, a lot of people will
come back to us going, I trashedthem.
So the waterproof trousers thatwe're looking to develop, how
can we do effectively a valuefor money outdoor pair of So you
(34:21):
could wear them around thecampsite as much as you could
wear them on the bike, butthey've got those motorbike
features so you can still wearthem over a pair of knee braces.
You can sit on the bike andthey're not going to ride up.
You can put them on and takethem off really quickly so you
don't overheat.
However, there's compromisesthere on the waterproofness.
So the fabric that was developedfor the single track jacket that
(34:41):
we also use in the Aquapackjacket is phenomenally
waterproof.
It's 30,000 millimetres, whichis phenomenally waterproof.
For a fabric to be waterproof,it's supposed to be 1500
millimetres.
That's the definition of what'swaterproof.
SPEAKER_02 (34:54):
We had this discussion last time, Clive,
didn't we, about what thesenumbers actually mean.
Could you just talk us throughthat, Jim, about what those
millimetres refer to?
SPEAKER_03 (35:02):
Yeah, so if you had a piece of fabric and a big
column of water, and the fabricwas at the bottom of the column
of water, it's basically howmuch pressure, let's say our
fabric does 30,000 millimetres,so that's 30 metres, you're
holding a column of water 30metres high.
Wow.
(35:22):
None of that water's passingthrough the fabric.
SPEAKER_02 (35:24):
With no pressure applied, that's just the
pressure of the water and theweight of the water.
SPEAKER_03 (35:28):
Yeah, so to put that into context, if you're kneeling
on the ground in a pair ofwaterproof pants on your
kneecap, if you see what I mean,that exerts a pressure of about
5,000 millimetres.
Interesting.
To put it into context.
But then you've got to factor inpressure so see if you're
sitting on a motorbike your arseis putting pressure on the
fabric wind does have an effecton it not as big as people think
(35:52):
it does quite often in theoutdoor kit you're making kit
for people to go out in 70 milean hour winds that they quite
regularly get up in Scotlandthen there's a balance the more
waterproof you make it the lessbreathable it becomes so there's
this real balance of kind ofwaterproofness and breathability
our kit is phenomenallywaterproof and It is breathable,
(36:13):
but not to a really high levelthat I'd expect in, say, outdoor
kitting.
But we're not necessarilyworking as hard as someone who's
running or walking.
And that waterproofness is moreimportant.
With the Aquapack garments, I'veprobably gone slightly the other
way.
They won't be as waterproof asthe single track, but they'll be
more than adequate.
(36:33):
They'll be 10,000 millimetresand above, so more than
adequate.
But the breathability will behigher.
Again, so there's that sort ofmulti-use, like you can buy one
jacket, it can be a motorbikejacket, but if you want to walk
the dog in it, you can walk thedog in it.
SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
Do you think people have unrealistic expectations of
breathable fabric?
SPEAKER_03 (36:51):
Yeah.
There's a doctor at LeedsUniversity who doesn't...
Lots and lots and lots and lotsof work on outdoor fabrics and
outdoor kit.
And he said the most breathableparts of your jacket are the
four holes in a jacket, whichare the arms, the neck, the
bottom.
It's true, isn't it?
And I mean, just having thecuffs loose makes a huge
difference, doesn't it?
When you zip yourself up, youimmediately get, oh, nice and
(37:12):
warm.
You create this microclimate.
But you only have to put yourhand in a plastic diesel glove.
This was a test that Gore did.
do really well for their gloves.
Put your hand in a plasticdeagle glove and then move your
hand around.
You go, oh, my hand's nice andwarm for a few minutes.
And then you see all thecondensation around.
And then you put it in aGore-Tex one and you don't see
(37:32):
the condensation.
You do get moisture there, butnot nowhere near as fast to
build up.
But moisture is a killer for thecold.
It transmits temperature eitherfrom the body or to the body so
quickly.
Again, that's where layeringcomes in.
So, you know, making sure thatyou've got a nice base layer
that wicks the moisture awayfrom your body and it sits in
the outer clothing.
So you don't necessarily alwaysnotice that sweat buildup.
SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
One very final question then.
Where do you see Adventure Specgoing?
What are the aspirations of thecompany?
Are you going to become amassive alpine star size
organisation or are you going tostay niche to the adventure and
trail motorbike market?
SPEAKER_03 (38:09):
I think we're going to definitely stay niche to the
adventure and trail market.
However, There's lots ofdiscussions amongst us at the
moment about how big the companycould become doing that.
So I think we could go down theAlpine Stars route and do a
premium Mongolia kit.
We could do a budget Mongoliakit.
We could do a something elseMongolia kit.
We've got a Mongolia kit.
(38:30):
Let's leave it, park it andleave it at that.
I think the exciting bit islooking at what other stuff we
can do and what other kit amotorcyclist having to go
outside the market at the momentand buy from the outdoor
industry, for example, maybethose products aren't tailored
totally to motorcyclists.
If I look at someone like LoneRider, they've launched two
(38:52):
tents now that are specificallydesigned for motorcyclists.
They've taken the idea that theGS rider wants to sleep next to
his motorbike.
So they've given you a porchthat you can put the...
You just look at ABR and it wasa wash with Lone Rider tents.
So they're doing what thecustomers have asked them to do.
And I really like the idea ofgoing, what's the adventure spec
customer want
SPEAKER_01 (39:11):
I really like the idea of having my motorbike
parked far enough away that ifit does fall down it doesn't
fall on me in the night butmaybe I'm strange that way each
SPEAKER_03 (39:21):
their own I guess but no I think there's a world
of opportunity for us you knowyou can't see it but I've got
boxes of ideas here that we'reworking on some of those will
come to fruition some won't youknow I really like the idea of
Adventure Spec following asimilar path to OutKit I know I
keep referring to it but it's abrand I know really well I'm
really passionate about it stillreally, really good friends with
(39:42):
the guys that run it.
When we started OutKit, we weregoing to do carabiners to
climbers.
That was the premise.
We could buy carabiners inItaly, dirt cheap, and we could
sell them direct becausecarabiners were really, really
expensive.
But then when we came to launch,we went, oh shit, we can't buy
carabiners.
They won't sell to us becausewe're this sort of new way of
selling.
They still want to sell in theold way.
Well, we're going to have to dosome other stuff.
(40:02):
So we ended up doing trekkingpoles and rock shoes.
And then because I was intocanoeing, I started taking...
the sleeping bags we did to someof the canoeing events.
But none of the outdoorcompanies were selling tents to
canoeists, but they were allcamping at all these things.
So the range kind of evolved.
And then one of the proudestmoments for me at OutKit was
when a guy, John Ross, a guycalled Shaggy, said, I'm going
(40:25):
to go do this really obscurebike race called I Did A Bike.
And he wanted a frame bag and noone made frame bags then.
Well, there was one guy, Eric inAlaska, that ran Epic Designs,
who was the only guy makingframe bags in the whole world.
And we met Shaggy because wejust won, ironically, product of
the year for the Hunker bivy bagin this mountain bike magazine.
And he said, I need a sleepingbag, but I could really do with
(40:46):
this frame bag.
Do you know anyone that can makeit?
And I was like, well, I can sew.
I'll try making you one.
And that led to Alpkit thensuddenly making all this bike
packing and then...
now cycle touring.
But very different genres ofcycling.
SPEAKER_01 (41:01):
Did you make a really, really, really long tent
so people could fit their canoesin as well?
SPEAKER_03 (41:06):
No, we made a really, really small tent so
they could fit it in the back oftheir canoes.
But I really like that sort ofsolving customers' problems,
however small they are.
So those compromises that youmake...
When you're buying a tent that'sgot really long tent poles, you
go, oh, well, that doesn't fitin my luggage.
Right, I've got to put it overhere.
More and more tents now thathave shorter poles that were
developed for bikepacking.
But then you go, what does amotorcyclist want out of
(41:27):
something that maybe abikepacker didn't want or a
climber didn't want or somethinglike that?
It's really exciting to be inthis space now and riding with
people.
And that's why I think it'sreally important to ride with
people, to pick up on thoselittle those little challenges,
the little problems, you go, Icould solve that for them.
SPEAKER_01 (41:47):
A massive thanks to Jim for doing that.
I'm sure you'll agree that was areally interesting insight into
how Adventure Spec decide whatproducts they're going to build
and how they get them built.
As far as partnership goes andsponsorship and adverts go, we
are only talking to people thatwe genuinely believe add
something to our hobby.
So, obviously, Adventure Spec,we're very high up on our list
(42:09):
of people to talk to.
I hope you enjoy that.
Please support Adventure Spec inthe same way that they are
supporting us to produce lotsmore fabulous podcasts.
Well, maybe fabulous is pushingit a bit.
All right, see you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Trail and Adventure
Motorbike Podcast with me CliveBarber and my good mate Noel
Tom.
For the days when you can't rideyour bike there's always the
Trail and Adventure MotorbikePodcast.
UNKNOWN (00:17):
Music
SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
Welcome back chaps, this is a pretty special episode
for us today and hopefully foryou too.
It's an episode of two halves.
In the first half we aredelighted to announce a new
partnership with our really goodfriends at Adventure Spec.
As you know we've had a verylong relationship with Adventure
Spec so it's probably nosurprise to most of you that we
(00:41):
are partnering for at least thenext 12 months.
In the first part, we talk aboutour experiences using Adventure
Spec kit.
And then in the second part, wetalk to Jim Evans, who is the
product manager at AdventureSpec.
We talk about what goes intomaking some of the best kit
available on the market today.
(01:01):
Right, let's get on with it.
UNKNOWN (01:03):
Adventure Spec
SPEAKER_01 (01:07):
So do you actually see yourself as a sponsored
rider now?
SPEAKER_02 (01:10):
I've always seen myself as a sponsored rider, but
it's just been a delusionalthing on my part, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
What can I tell you?
I'm fully in agreement.
So I think the lovely thing iswhen Greg started working for
Adventure Spec, Adventure Spechas changed quite a lot over
that period of time.
I mean, they were just sellingother people's stuff and then
they started to make their ownstuff.
And now they're exclusivelyselling their own kit, whether
that's hard parts or theirlayering system of clothing.
(01:35):
As a very small UK-basedcompany, I think this would
surprise a lot of people, howsmall Adventure Spec is, the
number of people that actuallywork there, because they've got
media presence and awareness outin the market.
place that people realizethere's like six people that
work there they would be quitesurprised
SPEAKER_02 (01:53):
i know they could see behind the the wizard's
curtain i think they'd besurprised but that's quite a
good thing i think i wouldn'tsay it's a family business but
it has that kind of ethos behindit a little bit doesn't it for
its numbers it's not a bigmachine
SPEAKER_01 (02:05):
i think the first bit of kit i ever got was the
baltic insulated jacket and ithink i've had that for eight
years now and i still actuallywear that still holding up
pretty well
SPEAKER_02 (02:14):
it's part of my smart going out gear
SPEAKER_01 (02:17):
It is.
It's my going to the cinemajacket.
One of my favourite bits of kitactually is the super shirt
because that is basically thefirst thing I always grab.
I pretty much wear that everytime I go out.
Once you've got that on, it's AArated, you can pretty much wear
anything you want, can't
SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
you?
That's your next dilemma, isn'tit, is what to wear over the top
of it.
I'm going away in July andAugust into roasting hot Europe.
I was sort of panicking aboutthe temperature and then I
remembered, I've got a supershirt.
All I've got to think about nowis what to wear over the top of
it.
And I'm not going to look like astupid British biker covered in
textile gear because I'll havesome kind of trendy checked
shirt on and a super shirtunderneath.
SPEAKER_01 (02:56):
When we went out for chips the other day, I look like
a proper hipster with my checkedshirt over the top of my super
shirt.
And it's all you need.
It's
SPEAKER_02 (03:02):
hard to believe, isn't it?
But then we did see them throwthat poor man down the...
the runway wearing one, didn'twe?
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
As far as I know, they're the only company that
have actually tested theirprotective gear.
A human being, rather than justrubbing it against some
sandpaper.
But that was actually quiteimpressive.
And I think there's a video ofthem somewhere as well.
trying to cut one with a bladeas well.
It's pretty impressive stuff.
I think material science isabsolutely fascinating that you
can now make things like thatthat are as AA rated.
(03:30):
That's quite impressive.
You're a fan of the linesmanpant, aren't you?
SPEAKER_02 (03:33):
Linesman pant and linesman jacket.
Linesman jacket.
I look great in a linesmanjacket with the shoulder pads.
You've been the...
top model for quite a long time,haven't you?
Well, yeah, he was a top model,but then it got unceremoniously
dropped when that bloke withtattoos came along.
So how old are you?
Well, maybe that.
Maybe as my looks faded, I wascast aside.
(03:53):
Your modelling career went onlonger than mine.
I think as I left, you walked inthe door.
SPEAKER_01 (03:58):
The way it's worked for me is anything that fits a
fat bloke, it's usually me.
Ah, right.
Look at how stretchy this is.
The fat bloke can wear that.
The other thing I always carrywith me is the aqua pack.
jacket that either goes in arucksack or in a bag somewhere
on the bike because it isinsanely waterproof.
(04:19):
All of the Adventure Specwaterproof stuff is at least
20,000 millimetres hydrostatichead.
What does that even mean?
I don't know.
Google it.
It's a big number, isn't it?
It's a big number.
All you need to sell awaterproof jacket, trading
standards type rules, is youneed to have a hydrostatic head
of 1,500 millimetres.
(04:40):
The AS stuff is at least 28,000millimetre hydrostatic head.
You're
SPEAKER_02 (04:45):
just saying numbers now.
Should we stumble around andguess what it is?
I think it's pushing waterthrough the fabric and it's
something to do with the sort ofthe pressure that you're putting
on it before that.
Those water molecules go through
SPEAKER_01 (04:56):
it.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Whatever it means, it means thatthat jacket is completely
waterproof.
So I've ridden for nine hourswearing that jacket and it
doesn't leak one bit.
SPEAKER_02 (05:05):
How good are you at putting waterproofs on before it
starts raining?
SPEAKER_01 (05:08):
Not so good, because you always hope that you're
actually
SPEAKER_02 (05:11):
going to...
Never happens.
SPEAKER_01 (05:12):
The other thing is, obviously, what they're doing is
they say they're creatinglightweight outdoors gear for
adventure motorcyclists.
And it's all about that layeringsystem that's been used for
years in traditional sort ofoutdoor gear.
And I think they're really oneof the first companies to
actually...
Get a complete range of clothesthat they've actually got now to
(05:34):
support that theory.
Once you get off-road, you gethot and sweaty, so you can take
layers off.
Whereas if you've got your bigbulky jacket on, it makes it
more difficult to do that.
I've got the linesman, I've gotthe Mongolia jacket, I've got
both of the waterproof jackets,so I can kind of pick and choose
what I take out with me.
I think Adventure Spec as awhole are there purely for...
(05:55):
us adventure and trail riders.
That's their niche.
That's what they focused on.
They all ride, they all traveland they all trail ride.
So what they've actually createdis something very, very specific
for us.
We've been fans of their stufffor years and it's just really
nice that they're now supportingus as well.
So go and check them out atadventurespec.com and sign up to
(06:18):
the newsletter, which is, it'sactually one of, I've said it
before on the podcast, it's oneof the best newsletters out
there It gives you lots ofinteresting things to look at or
to read.
And there's like one advert fora bit of a product at the end of
it.
So get yourself signed up forthat and check out the stuff on
adventurespec.com.
SPEAKER_03 (06:39):
We took the Himalayan that we got for
Adventure Spec to Wales for astaff trip and burnt the clutch
out.
That sounds like user error,though.
I wasn't riding it, so I can'tsay anything.
So I trailed it straight to thedealer and he kind of went, oh,
what's wrong with this then?
Well, we think we've burnt theclutch out.
He started it up and went, yep,you have.
How many miles is it on?
115.
I said, is that the lowestyou've had for a clutch?
(07:00):
He said, no, I've had lower.
SPEAKER_01 (07:01):
Was Greg riding it by any chance?
Mr.
Clutchburner himself?
SPEAKER_03 (07:06):
No, he wasn't.
It was on his photo bike, as hecalls it.
We went over Bomber Lane andthen we went Happy Valley, both
directions.
And then we went up the otherside of Happy Valley on the main
tech.
To be honest, those trails areprobably at the limit of that
size of bike, unless you're aphenomenal rider.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
Come on, you can tell us who was riding it.
Was it somebody inexperienced orwas it Adam, the bike destroyer?
No,
SPEAKER_02 (07:27):
no, it wasn't Adam.
It wasn't Adam.
But did that person, whoever itmay be, or she, women can ride
bikes too, I keep telling Clivethat, were they surprised?
Had they been dragging theclutch a lot, do you think?
SPEAKER_03 (07:37):
They didn't think they had.
Talking to Chris afterwards, hethinks the trail that we're
doing, because it's so steep andpebbly and stuff like that,
really, we should have gone downa sprocket just to give it more
torque and stuff like that.
We had a CF motor as well, andthat clutch had started to go as
well.
Again, 200-kilo bike on thatsort of terrain and stuff like
that.
But to be fair, they didphenomenally well until
(07:58):
Himalayan's clutch went.
SPEAKER_01 (08:00):
I talked to John Mitchinson about adjusting the
gearing on my CRF to try and geta more usable second gear, and
he just went, nah, stick it infirst and rev the nuts off it.
UNKNOWN (08:15):
LAUGHTER
SPEAKER_01 (08:16):
But we are absolutely delighted to welcome
new boy from Adventure Spec, JimEvans.
Well, you're not that new,actually.
You've been there for a while,Jim, haven't you?
SPEAKER_03 (08:25):
I've been there for just over a year on and off now,
but now working full time forthe last nearly six
SPEAKER_01 (08:29):
months.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, your riding history,
and what you do for AdventureSpec, and maybe a little bit
about your work history, becausethat's obviously very relevant
to what you're doing now atAdventure Spec.
SPEAKER_03 (08:42):
My name's Jim Evans.
I'm product manager forAdventure Spec, but for the
last...
30 years I've exclusively workedin the outdoor industry for some
famous brands, Trekmates, Rab,Sprayway, Bridgedale, also a
founder of Outkit, which was thefirst direct-to-consumer outdoor
brand.
And that's where I first kind ofcame across Adventure Spec.
I can't remember if it was Daveor Chris gave us a ring, but was
(09:02):
asking if we could make somestuff for them.
I've got a bit of a checkeredhistory of riding.
I kind of did my test and likeeveryone else, I've got quite a
connection to Long Way Roundbecause I was working in the
outdoor industry and theyobviously wanted kit.
So I ended up supplying some drybags and bits and pieces through
Snow and Rock, I think it was,the brand I was working for at
the time.
As you do, you then watch it andthat looks exciting.
(09:25):
I want a bit of that.
And then we started Outkit andthen GS after GS after GS kept
turning up, getting Camping Kitand then setting off to Morocco
and just seeding that All thetime.
And then opportunity arose thatI could do my bike test.
So I went and got that GS.
Holy shit.
It was a big bike.
I didn't just go through GS.
I went to the GSA with all thealuminium panniers and then put
all my cycling kit as was.
(09:47):
I was quite big into bikepackinginto half a pannier.
SPEAKER_01 (09:50):
It's not bikepacking.
I'm sorry.
It's called cycle touring.
No, no bikepacking.
No, Jim, you're old enough toknow better.
Come on.
I was at the forefront ofbikepacking.
Well, I was at the forefront ofcycle touring and it's exactly
the same thing!
SPEAKER_02 (10:02):
Why do you like bikepacking?
Do you just feel like it's beenneedlessly rebranded?
SPEAKER_01 (10:06):
Yeah, it's just all these young people coming along
and thinking, oh, look at us onour bikes going cycle touring
with our packs on our bike.
It's cycle touring.
You've just got ridiculousluggage.
Can
SPEAKER_02 (10:17):
you see that?
Yeah, sort of.
They're both kind of new termsto me.
SPEAKER_03 (10:20):
See, I think there's a real synergy between
bikepacking and adventure specand the tech.
SPEAKER_01 (10:24):
I've got a problem with the word synergy as well.
SPEAKER_03 (10:29):
It's going to be a long night, this.
For me, that whole bikepackingwas about loading your bike to
minimise the effect of theluggage on the bike so you could
ride roads, trails, the trailsthat you're riding without
luggage.
Now I've kind of come over tothe sort of motorcycle world.
I've taken the GS and I'd saythe GS with aluminium panniers
is very much sits in that cycletouring world, if you see what I
(10:50):
mean.
Yeah, it's a capable bike.
You could take it off road withaluminium panniers, but you're
immediately compromised just bythe weight of your luggage.
So for me, that getting asmaller capacity bike, lighter,
loading it with less kit allowsyou to then carry on riding
those trails.
So I think for me, there's thisreally nice synergy between,
I'll use that word again,bikepacking and...
Don't worry, I'll beep it out.
(11:11):
And sort of riding the tech,riding trails and stuff like
that, being able to ride theroads or the trail or go
wherever you want with the bike.
SPEAKER_02 (11:18):
Had you tried other bikes or did you just have the
1200 in mind because of whatyou'd seen and you just stuck
with that dream?
SPEAKER_03 (11:23):
In fact, actually, no, I didn't get the GSA
straight away.
I shit myself because I went tothe showroom and went, holy
shit, this is massive and boughta Triumph Tiger 800.
I then went, booked myself ontothe GS off-road school, sitting
there with Simon Pavey doing histhing and we're all sitting in
front of a GS...
And I'm going, I've never sat onone of these, let alone ride
one.
And he puts his hand, haseveryone ridden a GS?
And obviously everyone putstheir hands up.
(11:44):
Anyone not?
And I kind of subtly put my handup.
No, I've got a clue.
But from that moment on, yourealised how capable of a bike
they are and how much easier itwas to ride than the Triumph
that I had.
I chatted to Greg.
Through COVID, I watched all hisfilms with you guys in it and
stuff.
And he was waxing lyrical aboutsleeping bags and how good
synthetic sleeping bags was.
(12:05):
And I was working for Rab at thetime and I'm a down sleeping bag
convert.
So I thought, well, I need toput Greg in his place here.
He might know everything heknows about motorbikes, but he
doesn't know about sleepingbags.
So I sent him a sleeping bag andgot talking to him.
I went to ABR.
I ended up camping next to Will.
So I got to know Will.
I'm just chatting to him.
I'm from Cambridge.
So we had quite a mutual...
talking about Cambridge and bitslike that.
(12:26):
And then suddenly there was thisclick that he rides with Greg
and I'd just been speaking toGreg.
And Will had his 690.
So I sat on his 690 and therefell apart the dreams of GSs.
And I have a 690 in the garagenow.
Kind of looks very similar toWill's.
SPEAKER_01 (12:45):
Tell us a little bit More about your role at
Adventure Spec.
What do you do as the productmanager?
SPEAKER_03 (12:50):
It's quite a varied role, actually.
Adventure Spec isn't a bigcompany.
There's not many of us there.
So effectively, I've taken oneverything there is to do about
product.
So that's kind of looking at ourproduct story.
And I'll use another twatty wordof product vision about product.
what products we might do in thefuture, what products we do now,
and actually how we can linkthose products together and how
we can talk about them.
(13:10):
So I work really closely withGreg on that side of it.
I then work really closely withall our suppliers.
So we've got two main factoriesin Europe that we use for our
hard parts and our soft goods,so luggage and clothing.
And then we use a few FarEastern suppliers as well.
So I liaise with all of those.
I liaise with product designersif we need a product designer,
or I might kind of take on thatproduct development myself,
(13:32):
depending...
where it is.
I'm quite handy on a sewingmachine.
That was my background atOutkit.
We started a little microfactory at Outkit.
So I'm quite handy at jumping ona sewing machine and just trial
and error and making stuff.
And I find that really excitingand fun.
Effectively, anything to do withproduct, it's me.
And then as I've got a bit of aside gig that anything to do
with shows, I kind of take on aswell.
(13:53):
Throughout my career, I've kindof worn two hats as either a A
frustrated product designer.
That's what I always wanted tobe as a kid.
I did my A-levels dreaming thatI was going to go and draw Hanes
manuals.
What a wasted job that wouldhave been today.
But that's what I dreamt ofdrawing, Hanes manuals by hand.
I pursued that career and then Iwent into a job and I was the
only one that could use a Mac inthe corner.
(14:14):
So I ended up kind of learning abit about marketing.
And from that, I've done shows.
So I kind of always worn thesesort of two hats of marketing
and product.
When I started working at Rab, amarketing director there, I
worked so closely with theproduct director and the two of
us were really on the samewavelength and realizing how
much those roles areintertwined.
If so many businesses areseparated, they might have some
people in the product team thatmaybe do some product research.
(14:37):
Product and marketing are sointerlinked and the companies
that do that well, you can seeit a mile off.
They understand what theircustomers want before they even
make the product.
SPEAKER_01 (14:45):
We'll come back to the product stuff in a minute.
But one thing you mentioned wasthe size of the team at
Adventure Spec.
Now, Adventure Spec comes acrossoutwardly like a very big
British manufacturing companyproducing this amazing kit.
But the reality is the team isactually very small, isn't it?
If you exclude the manufacturingthat happens in Europe.
SPEAKER_03 (15:03):
So currently there's six of us at Adventure Spec.
So it's a pretty small business.
However, quite a lot of ourcentral functions are
outsourced.
So we have three warehouses inthe US, EU and the UK.
UK, but they're all outsourcedas third-party warehouses.
So we don't have any warehousestaff and stuff like that that a
business might have.
So the team is just a core team,really.
(15:25):
So I look after product.
Greg looks after the brand andmarketing.
We've got Adam and Ben in ourhelp desk and customer service
team.
And Chris, obviously, founder ofVentureSpec, keeps us all on the
right track.
And then we've got Stephen thatworks on our systems, helping
Chris with orders.
Very much the sort of nuts andbolts in our backend system.
We've got a really good Yeah,you're right.
(15:50):
AdventureSpec is not big in sizeof people.
SPEAKER_02 (16:10):
Was it COVID that changed that and made everything
remote as it has done witheverybody else?
SPEAKER_03 (16:14):
Yeah, once COVID hit and everybody was working
remotely, they couldn'tnecessarily always ship stuff
out.
Chris embarked on a really bigproject pretty much by himself,
really, to find a computersystem that could link to three
separate warehouses that couldlink all the customer service
help desk stuff together and thewebsite.
And it's a pretty sizableproject.
I've come from some bigcompanies into Adventure Spec
(16:36):
and seen what Chris has done.
And hats off to him.
It means we can grow reallyeffectively and scalably and
sustainably by bringing morestaff in.
SPEAKER_01 (16:45):
Another thing that has changed dramatically in a
very positive way is customerservice because Adventure Spec
didn't always have the bestreputation for customer service
and I think you mentioned Adamand Ben and that reputation has
pretty much done a 180 degreeturn and I see mostly good
feedback these days.
SPEAKER_03 (17:01):
Yeah, I think Adam led I say Adam led that charge.
I guess Chris and Greg led thatcharge and identified something
had to change in the help deskand with our customer service.
So they recruited Adam and Adamcame on board and his background
has been very serviceorientated.
Again, similar to me, he'd comefrom the cycle industry, working
in bike shops, some of the stuffhe'd done.
And Adam's got an amazing amountof fairness.
(17:22):
I was talking to Steve at MotorJunkies this weekend, actually,
because he's got the first pairof single track pants that were
ever made that Greg gave him.
And he reckons he's done 25,000kilometres on those.
And they look beat up, but theylook nicely beat up, if you see
what I mean.
And I said, I want them back.
And he's like, I don't want togive them back.
They're so comfortable.
But you've trashed the bottom ofthem and I want to see how I can
make them better.
If we can get a product thatlasts a season with a guide,
(17:45):
that should be a few years useof a normal rider, if you see
what I mean.
You can make a piece of kitabsolutely bomb proof, but it
won't be very comfortable towear.
So you've got to take this sortof this pragmatic balance, if
you see what I mean.
And Adam is really, really goodat that of saying, maybe you've
worn it a little bit hard.
Okay, we'll try and organise arepair for you or send that one
back and I'll do yourreplacement and give you a
(18:05):
discount.
But it's also fair on a venturespec.
You know, you can bankrupt acompany really, really quickly
if you just say, anytime anyonegets in contact with us, we're
just going to replace it.
And I work really, reallyclosely with Adam and Ben to get
that product feedback, to getthe product feedback of how I
can make a product better, butalso to assist them to sort of,
has that product been usedcorrectly or has someone used it
(18:26):
differently?
Try and understand that.
Why is something worn in aparticular place?
Knee braces and foot pegs areprobably the two You know, we've
probably got a test pool of 10riders and maybe a piece of kit
will get a year to two yearsworth of development and riding
on different people before itgoes into production.
But knee braces, we can't testfor every single knee brace that
comes underneath.
We kind of call them grippers.
(18:47):
There's certain riders that wearknee braces and then they grip
their bike unbelievably tight.
You've now got a piece of fabricbetween either a hard piece of
plastic or a hard piece of metalagainst the metal frame of the
bike.
And then they say, oh, mytrousers are worn out between
it.
Like, or course they have,you're just basically grinding
the fabric away.
We knew Adam first, didn't we?
Adam's part of our board ofdirectors
SPEAKER_02 (19:06):
on the podcast as well, and we've known him a long
time, and I can imagine he'sfantastic at that job, because
he is a very, very sensible,fair-minded person, as you say.
SPEAKER_01 (19:15):
I had a pair of Merino leggings I wore when it
was cold, and I was a bitannoyed, because after a few
months, one of the knees hadvirtually worn through.
In the warm weather, I wasriding with the same trousers,
and it was like something wasreally...
scratching my knee and irealized like a bit of velcro
was actually sticking out so iwas going to send them back
saying these are shit but then irealized it was my own fault for
(19:37):
not tucking the velcro awayproperly tell us a little bit
more about the history ofadventure spec because it's gone
from being a company that sortof supplied third-party kit that
chris and dave used for theirtrips to a company that now
pretty much only sells stuffthat it manufactures
SPEAKER_03 (19:53):
adventure specs coming up for 20 years old and
like you say was founded by bydave and chris who would really
earn early pioneers of ridinglighter bikes with lighter kit
on trails, really.
Been banging this drum for 20years.
Chris and Dave were at the firstmeeting of Horizons Unlimited.
They were there with John Rosswhen they set the TET up and
helped John fund the starting ofthe TET.
(20:15):
For such a small company,they've had such an influence on
this sort of trail and adventuremarket.
It was really interesting to seeABR that was just finished.
We had a stand at ABR.
So what was there?
17,500 people at ABR this year.
I mean, it was phenomenal.
I went to the first ABR with 70of us in a field.
To go to ABR and be on a stand,17,500 people.
(20:36):
I walk around the stalls and itwasn't full of GSs with
aluminium frames around them andstuff like that.
And this is the drum Dave andChris have been banging for so,
so long.
And then to see ABR...
evolve into effectively whatthey've been talking about for
so long is brilliant.
And now to be part of that withAdventure Spec and my role as
(20:56):
the sort of the product managerto now say, you know, where can
we take Adventure Spec now?
You know, the market's caught upwith Adventure Spec.
You're no longer distributingall these brands.
We've got our own range now.
Yeah, big up for Chris and Dave.
You know, they were so far aheadof the curve when they started
to work with Chris and reallysort of say, how's it feel to be
in a field with 17,500 peopleand think, you created some of
(21:19):
this.
SPEAKER_01 (21:19):
It's really interesting for you to say that
because I remember when Istarted trail riding many years
ago, there wasn't really theequivalent of an adventure spec.
I used to wear motocross stuffAnd I used to wear a mountain
bike waterproof or pack amountain bike waterproof to go
over the top if it was raining.
And they just weren't waterprooftrousers back then, really.
(21:41):
It was very difficult to get kitthat actually worked.
And it is amazing that a smallcompany like Adventure Spec have
actually...
designed kit for exactly what wedo not only exactly what we do
as in trail riding but you cantravel the world in this kit as
well you mentioned the magadanpanniers designed so they can be
repaired in the remotest partsof the world right you can if
(22:03):
anybody's got a sewing machineor a needle and thread you can
you can patch them up and fixthem if you fall
SPEAKER_03 (22:09):
off the great thing now i think is that we can call
them competitors or i can callthem competitors but the nice
thing now is how many morebrands are in that space which
is only increasing the theamount of people that want that
kit they just have to look atthe rise of the TET now because
I kind of inherited theAdventure Spec shows.
I was going through the graphicsand there was a graphic there
for the TET and it said 88,000kilometres.
Great, well, I can't use thatnow.
(22:29):
It's well over 100.
And even in my kind of sort offormer life of making
bikepacking kit.
Cycle touring.
The TET's now being used bycyclists to choose routes
because ironically, the TET isreasonably easy to cycle on a
bike.
It's not too technical a trail.
SPEAKER_01 (22:44):
Yeah, just watch out there.
There's motorbikes comingthrough.
Get out of the fucking way anddon't ride too aggressive, you
knobheads.
So at some point then, you haveincreased the range of products
that Adventure Spec produced.
I think the first things youproduced was the linesman
jacket, wasn't it?
And you've expanded the rangesince then.
(23:04):
How do you decide what you'regoing to produce next?
SPEAKER_03 (23:08):
That's a tricky question.
Sometimes it's, can you make it?
You know, you might have quite afew products being developed at
the same time and one...
sort of bubbles to the surfacequicker than others.
I think the nice thing workingfor Adventure Spec, very, very
similar to working at Alpkit,that the product development
cycle is very natural and youdevelop the products that you
want to do because you're goingto sell them to the end
(23:30):
customer.
When I was working for outdoorbrands that sold through shops,
it was very constrained.
You were working quite often offExcel spreadsheets because a
certain customer buys a productand they buy thousands of them.
You don't touch that product.
You don't take the colors ofthat product.
There's no appetite to improvethat product.
It's selling as it is.
Whereas selling direct toconsumer and not having to talk
(23:52):
to three or four buyers, that'swhy we started AlpKit.
you know, totally in the outdoorindustry, you can count them on
your hand, the amount of buyersthat really control the products
that get made, that allow thosenumbers.
So, you know, the buyers for thebigger chains or the more
influential sort ofindependents, if they don't like
that product, it doesn't go tomarket.
And therefore, the sort ofranging within those brands
(24:15):
takes a lot longer.
So it might take, you know,sometimes three years from an
idea to come to where you thenlaunch it to the retailer.
And then you've got another yearbefore it makes it into the
shop.
Whereas with, AdventureSpec andOutKit, you don't have to jump
through those hoops, how wechoose what products to bring.
So I've just been working on adocument that would effectively
(24:35):
a product timeline forAdventureSpec.
And at the moment, I've reallyjust kind of looked, where's
some natural holes that wehaven't got product in?
What are people asking for?
How can we improve product, ifyou see what I mean?
Because sometimes you canimprove a product.
So SuperShirt was the firstproduct that I kind of worked on
to improve.
Working with the factory, wekind of resourced the fabric,
which allowed us to buy itcheaper.
(24:56):
And ironically, it's now madeabout three miles away from a
house.
So the fabric the super shirt'smade of is made in the UK.
It's then shipped out to ourfactory in Bulgaria and made
into the super shirt.
Through quite a workbookexercise, we've managed to
reduce the cost of that supershirt to get that sweet spot.
And that's suddenly taken thesuper shirt off.
Off the back of that, I'mlooking at a super pant, which
(25:18):
effectively a pair of leggingsmade out of the same fabric.
And one of the major purposes ofthat was to expand into kit that
we can make for women.
It's a really emotive subject.
It's something I'm really proudto have been through in the
outdoor industry.
SPEAKER_02 (25:32):
Has there always been an issue with women's
clothing that the numbers justweren't there to make it viable
for a manufacturer?
SPEAKER_03 (25:36):
Essentially, yeah, yeah.
You either had to be reallybrave and put your money where
your mouth was and buy lots ofkit, which lots of brands have
done.
You see it in the motorcycleindustry.
Lots of brands have jumped intothe women's sector, done some
amazing clothing, And then asquickly as they've come into it,
have dropped it because thesales weren't there.
Some of that is because thegatekeepers are still the
(25:58):
retailers.
And if the retailers don't buyit and come through, sometimes
the retailers will buy it.
If there aren't enough riders tobuy it, or for whatever reason
they don't know about it, or itall gets sold on clearance,
you're back to square one.
Well, this is the
SPEAKER_01 (26:11):
other thing, isn't it?
I think people don't kind ofrealise, it's the same with my
wife's business, that you're nota massive company, you're not an
Alpine Stars, you can't lay outhundreds of thousands of pounds
to produce a product that thendoesn't sell.
It's the same thing withcolours.
You have to limit the number ofcolours you make, because if you
end up with one colour thatnobody likes, then you're just
going to end up with a load ofstock That you can't sell,
(26:32):
basically.
SPEAKER_03 (26:32):
Or you end up with a load of fabric that you can't
turn into something.
So it's even deader stocksometimes.
Again, kind of hats off toChris, because one of the things
I came in and said, I thinkthere's a real opportunity for
you to do women's wear here andfor us to take a lead on it.
He's like, we can, but thenumbers are tricky.
In our trousers, we do from 28inch to 44 inch in three lengths
(26:55):
in all of those trousers.
I can't promise that all ofthose trousers are going to be
in stock at all the times.
but they have all been made.
There's a huge size range oftrousers that are already there.
The first job I did when I tookon the, let's call it the
women's project, was just tryingour kit on women as it is before
we do anything, before we changeanything.
And actually the linesman pantis a hands down women with
(27:18):
women.
It's not a flattering pant, butmotorcycling pants aren't.
You know, they've got to have ahigh waist for the protection
that they offer.
So actually the linesman pant,we found that we didn't really
have to do anything for that.
Because we've got the short legand we do it in a wide range of
sizes and that fabric's gotstretch in it, it works really,
really well.
Same with the super shirt.
We've introduced an extra small.
(27:39):
So the sizing on the super shirtnow goes from extra small.
It may even go to double extrasmall if we think we need to up
to triple XL.
And because the super shirt'sgot so much stretch in it,
actually trying it on a lot ofwomen, it's not going to fit
everybody.
It doesn't fit every man.
But I've made some tweaks to thesmaller sizes because some of
the smaller sizes weren'tfitting some men as well.
Try and fit the bell curve ofmost of the people that are
(27:59):
riding.
So our women's project is reallylooking at this unisex sizing
and how can we increase theamount of sizing we're doing
without doubling the amount ofSKUs.
SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
What's coming next?
What's in development?
Tell us all the good stuff.
SPEAKER_03 (28:17):
Superpant.
which is a legging version ofthe super shirt.
We'll look to get that certifiedto AA.
And I think super pant will bereally liberating for female
riders as well becauseeffectively they can wear that
on the bottom and then they canaccess, you know, the outdoor
industry for trousers to go overthe top.
Wearing it over the weekend, itwas roasting hot.
I mean, I had the super pant onand a pair of trousers over the
(28:38):
top, but when I was riding, Iwasn't, wasn't overheating.
The rest of the team all hadMongolia kit on and I think I
was as comfortable as they were.
But the nice thing, when we gotto the campsite, I could just
take the super pants off andI've got my trousers on.
SPEAKER_02 (28:50):
That was with very soft knee armour and soft
SPEAKER_03 (28:53):
armour in the hips as well.
Yeah, yes.
They've got a coccyx pad in themas well.
So hip pads, knee pads and thena coccyx armor in them as well.
Mongolia, I've been working alot on.
So the guys were in the Mongoliakit.
So that's the new Mongolia 2.0s.
It's just going through CEtesting at the moment.
So that's a nice kind of stageon from the Mongolia and Atacama
kit that we had that wasdeveloped with Lyndon.
(29:15):
Still taking that Rallyheritage, but now we've taken it
on board of how can we createkits that can be used on
multi-day adventures, or you'regoing to go off on a GS around
the world, how could you wearthe Mongolia?
And how can we take thatlayering principle in that and
move it forward?
SPEAKER_01 (29:31):
No, there's a question for you and I.
I don't know the answer to this.
I hope Jim does know the answerto this.
I'll know.
You know everything.
You've got the knowledge.
There's a concept we need toexpand on.
What would you say is the mostpopular, the biggest selling
product?
two pieces of Adventure Speckit.
SPEAKER_02 (29:47):
I'm guessing this one.
Well, it's easy, isn't it?
It's going to be the linesmanand the linesman pant.
SPEAKER_01 (29:51):
That's what I was going to say.
Yeah, the two linesman things.
Or is it now the super shirt?
SPEAKER_03 (29:55):
Is it super shirt and linesman pant or R2?
Two big winners.
Really?
Not the linesman jacket?
It sells well.
Kind of number three, really,alongside.
There's quite a few that tie forthat number three, but a super
shirt and linesman pants are thetwo.
And I think that's reallybecause there's quite a few
people that do something similarto the linesman jacket.
SPEAKER_02 (30:13):
I always pick it off the rail.
I picked it off the railrecently for my road trip to the
Alps.
And mainly because the pocketsare fantastic in it.
And especially the pocket on theinside.
Just put so much in it.
That's what I love about it, isthat big bits...
can go in those huge pockets, aswell as it being nice and cool.
SPEAKER_01 (30:34):
Traditionally, again, going back to when I
started riding, it was motocrossgear or the big Heineken suits
that had multiple layers.
Because we ride off-road...
You get too hot in somethinglike that.
Even in the winter, you can gettoo hot in something like that.
So I'm not even sure we need totalk about layering.
It's just such an obvious,blooming thing.
It seems like some of the biggercompanies are now picking up on,
(30:56):
which Adventures Pick have beendoing for years, right?
SPEAKER_03 (30:59):
A lot of brands in the outdoor industry, it took
them a long time to cotton ontothe layering system.
And now that's standard inoutdoor.
And when I came intomotorcycling and I bought my
first...
adventure suit.
It was waterproof and insulated.
Then you go, well, hang on aminute, it just kind of is
waterproof.
I've got to zip this thing in,but the outside's getting
soaking wet.
It was kind of really nice toget to know Adventure Spec and
(31:19):
the layering system and reallyunderstand the principle behind
the layering system because it'sall about comfort and it's all
about safety.
If you're wearing a big bulkysuit, you just haven't got as
much movement.
All those layers on the roadwhen you're riding to the trail.
So when you get to the trail,you're not freezing cold.
And when you get on the trail,you're not overheating.
I'm a real product geek.
And I love testing fabrics,understanding how fabrics work,
(31:40):
understand how materials workand stuff like that.
The CE testing for products hasbeen really interesting to
understand that and starting tounderstand how layering works
for protection as well.
The Super Shirt goes in fortesting and we've tested that to
AA, which effectively is up tosort of those 40, 50 mile an
hour speeds.
That's what the Super Shirt isdesigned to be crashed in.
(32:03):
But if you put the linesman overthe top of it, you've now got a
AA protection.
with a single A rating over thetop, that's going to be better
to crash in than the Supershirton its own.
But that's led me into lots ofresearch around the old
Cambridge test and leathers andthe research there that they
found that crashing in leathersthat the riders were all getting
burnt because the vibrations ofthe leather so bike races were
(32:23):
then mandated they had to wear asilk undergarments underneath
the leather to stop them gettingburnt so there's all this sort
of stuff that I'm starting tolearn about how the clothing you
wear crashes if you see what Imean and how building those
layers up and again came back tocycling you know when I started
cycling and cycle racing I wasalways told to wear an under
jersey you're still going to getroad rash but you don't get it
as bad So actually, when you goback to sort of this principle
(32:46):
of layering that Dave and Chrisbought into motorcycling, yes,
it was about comfort, both hotand cold, but it was also about
safety.
So the idea of wearing thelinesman jackets with the arms
on, riding to the trail, oh, I'mat the trail, now I'm going to
take the arms off.
Injury mechanisms change.
If you crash on the road, you'reprobably going to be at high
speed and you're going to slidefor a long way.
(33:06):
If you crash on a trail, you'reat low speed, but you're going
to hit the deck pretty hard.
And the injuries that peoplesustain change.
Actually, layering starts toreally play into that as well.
And the super shirt and thesuper pant will kind of play off
that.
SPEAKER_01 (33:17):
Right, Noel, maybe I'll answer this, but I'll give
you a chance to think about it.
What is the next product thatyou want Adventure Spec to
develop?
I would like some lightweightwaterproof over trousers.
I know you do the single trackpants.
but they're a fairly beefy itemwhich you'd probably put on and
wear all day.
I want something I can screw upand put in my five litre little
(33:40):
bag that I've got my waterproofkit in.
And I want it to be aswaterproof as your waterproof
jackets, which are insanelywaterproof.
And that was my second question,is I want you to talk about your
waterproof ratings as well.
SPEAKER_03 (33:52):
So I was trying to give you a sneak peek, but there
might be a pair on my rackbehind me here of Aquapack
pants.
SPEAKER_01 (33:58):
I genuinely didn't know you
SPEAKER_03 (34:00):
were doing those.
Aquapack jacket and Aquapackpant are both on my...
my list of products to develop.
And again, I kind of walk in atightrope here because I know
whatever pair of pants that Idevelop, a lot of people will
come back to us going, I trashedthem.
So the waterproof trousers thatwe're looking to develop, how
can we do effectively a valuefor money outdoor pair of So you
(34:21):
could wear them around thecampsite as much as you could
wear them on the bike, butthey've got those motorbike
features so you can still wearthem over a pair of knee braces.
You can sit on the bike andthey're not going to ride up.
You can put them on and takethem off really quickly so you
don't overheat.
However, there's compromisesthere on the waterproofness.
So the fabric that was developedfor the single track jacket that
(34:41):
we also use in the Aquapackjacket is phenomenally
waterproof.
It's 30,000 millimetres, whichis phenomenally waterproof.
For a fabric to be waterproof,it's supposed to be 1500
millimetres.
That's the definition of what'swaterproof.
SPEAKER_02 (34:54):
We had this discussion last time, Clive,
didn't we, about what thesenumbers actually mean.
Could you just talk us throughthat, Jim, about what those
millimetres refer to?
SPEAKER_03 (35:02):
Yeah, so if you had a piece of fabric and a big
column of water, and the fabricwas at the bottom of the column
of water, it's basically howmuch pressure, let's say our
fabric does 30,000 millimetres,so that's 30 metres, you're
holding a column of water 30metres high.
Wow.
(35:22):
None of that water's passingthrough the fabric.
SPEAKER_02 (35:24):
With no pressure applied, that's just the
pressure of the water and theweight of the water.
SPEAKER_03 (35:28):
Yeah, so to put that into context, if you're kneeling
on the ground in a pair ofwaterproof pants on your
kneecap, if you see what I mean,that exerts a pressure of about
5,000 millimetres.
Interesting.
To put it into context.
But then you've got to factor inpressure so see if you're
sitting on a motorbike your arseis putting pressure on the
fabric wind does have an effecton it not as big as people think
(35:52):
it does quite often in theoutdoor kit you're making kit
for people to go out in 70 milean hour winds that they quite
regularly get up in Scotlandthen there's a balance the more
waterproof you make it the lessbreathable it becomes so there's
this real balance of kind ofwaterproofness and breathability
our kit is phenomenallywaterproof and It is breathable,
(36:13):
but not to a really high levelthat I'd expect in, say, outdoor
kitting.
But we're not necessarilyworking as hard as someone who's
running or walking.
And that waterproofness is moreimportant.
With the Aquapack garments, I'veprobably gone slightly the other
way.
They won't be as waterproof asthe single track, but they'll be
more than adequate.
(36:33):
They'll be 10,000 millimetresand above, so more than
adequate.
But the breathability will behigher.
Again, so there's that sort ofmulti-use, like you can buy one
jacket, it can be a motorbikejacket, but if you want to walk
the dog in it, you can walk thedog in it.
SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
Do you think people have unrealistic expectations of
breathable fabric?
SPEAKER_03 (36:51):
Yeah.
There's a doctor at LeedsUniversity who doesn't...
Lots and lots and lots and lotsof work on outdoor fabrics and
outdoor kit.
And he said the most breathableparts of your jacket are the
four holes in a jacket, whichare the arms, the neck, the
bottom.
It's true, isn't it?
And I mean, just having thecuffs loose makes a huge
difference, doesn't it?
When you zip yourself up, youimmediately get, oh, nice and
(37:12):
warm.
You create this microclimate.
But you only have to put yourhand in a plastic diesel glove.
This was a test that Gore did.
do really well for their gloves.
Put your hand in a plasticdeagle glove and then move your
hand around.
You go, oh, my hand's nice andwarm for a few minutes.
And then you see all thecondensation around.
And then you put it in aGore-Tex one and you don't see
(37:32):
the condensation.
You do get moisture there, butnot nowhere near as fast to
build up.
But moisture is a killer for thecold.
It transmits temperature eitherfrom the body or to the body so
quickly.
Again, that's where layeringcomes in.
So, you know, making sure thatyou've got a nice base layer
that wicks the moisture awayfrom your body and it sits in
the outer clothing.
So you don't necessarily alwaysnotice that sweat buildup.
SPEAKER_01 (37:55):
One very final question then.
Where do you see Adventure Specgoing?
What are the aspirations of thecompany?
Are you going to become amassive alpine star size
organisation or are you going tostay niche to the adventure and
trail motorbike market?
SPEAKER_03 (38:09):
I think we're going to definitely stay niche to the
adventure and trail market.
However, There's lots ofdiscussions amongst us at the
moment about how big the companycould become doing that.
So I think we could go down theAlpine Stars route and do a
premium Mongolia kit.
We could do a budget Mongoliakit.
We could do a something elseMongolia kit.
We've got a Mongolia kit.
(38:30):
Let's leave it, park it andleave it at that.
I think the exciting bit islooking at what other stuff we
can do and what other kit amotorcyclist having to go
outside the market at the momentand buy from the outdoor
industry, for example, maybethose products aren't tailored
totally to motorcyclists.
If I look at someone like LoneRider, they've launched two
(38:52):
tents now that are specificallydesigned for motorcyclists.
They've taken the idea that theGS rider wants to sleep next to
his motorbike.
So they've given you a porchthat you can put the...
You just look at ABR and it wasa wash with Lone Rider tents.
So they're doing what thecustomers have asked them to do.
And I really like the idea ofgoing, what's the adventure spec
customer want
SPEAKER_01 (39:11):
I really like the idea of having my motorbike
parked far enough away that ifit does fall down it doesn't
fall on me in the night butmaybe I'm strange that way each
SPEAKER_03 (39:21):
their own I guess but no I think there's a world
of opportunity for us you knowyou can't see it but I've got
boxes of ideas here that we'reworking on some of those will
come to fruition some won't youknow I really like the idea of
Adventure Spec following asimilar path to OutKit I know I
keep referring to it but it's abrand I know really well I'm
really passionate about it stillreally, really good friends with
(39:42):
the guys that run it.
When we started OutKit, we weregoing to do carabiners to
climbers.
That was the premise.
We could buy carabiners inItaly, dirt cheap, and we could
sell them direct becausecarabiners were really, really
expensive.
But then when we came to launch,we went, oh shit, we can't buy
carabiners.
They won't sell to us becausewe're this sort of new way of
selling.
They still want to sell in theold way.
Well, we're going to have to dosome other stuff.
(40:02):
So we ended up doing trekkingpoles and rock shoes.
And then because I was intocanoeing, I started taking...
the sleeping bags we did to someof the canoeing events.
But none of the outdoorcompanies were selling tents to
canoeists, but they were allcamping at all these things.
So the range kind of evolved.
And then one of the proudestmoments for me at OutKit was
when a guy, John Ross, a guycalled Shaggy, said, I'm going
(40:25):
to go do this really obscurebike race called I Did A Bike.
And he wanted a frame bag and noone made frame bags then.
Well, there was one guy, Eric inAlaska, that ran Epic Designs,
who was the only guy makingframe bags in the whole world.
And we met Shaggy because wejust won, ironically, product of
the year for the Hunker bivy bagin this mountain bike magazine.
And he said, I need a sleepingbag, but I could really do with
(40:46):
this frame bag.
Do you know anyone that can makeit?
And I was like, well, I can sew.
I'll try making you one.
And that led to Alpkit thensuddenly making all this bike
packing and then...
now cycle touring.
But very different genres ofcycling.
SPEAKER_01 (41:01):
Did you make a really, really, really long tent
so people could fit their canoesin as well?
SPEAKER_03 (41:06):
No, we made a really, really small tent so
they could fit it in the back oftheir canoes.
But I really like that sort ofsolving customers' problems,
however small they are.
So those compromises that youmake...
When you're buying a tent that'sgot really long tent poles, you
go, oh, well, that doesn't fitin my luggage.
Right, I've got to put it overhere.
More and more tents now thathave shorter poles that were
developed for bikepacking.
But then you go, what does amotorcyclist want out of
(41:27):
something that maybe abikepacker didn't want or a
climber didn't want or somethinglike that?
It's really exciting to be inthis space now and riding with
people.
And that's why I think it'sreally important to ride with
people, to pick up on thoselittle those little challenges,
the little problems, you go, Icould solve that for them.
SPEAKER_01 (41:47):
A massive thanks to Jim for doing that.
I'm sure you'll agree that was areally interesting insight into
how Adventure Spec decide whatproducts they're going to build
and how they get them built.
As far as partnership goes andsponsorship and adverts go, we
are only talking to people thatwe genuinely believe add
something to our hobby.
So, obviously, Adventure Spec,we're very high up on our list
(42:09):
of people to talk to.
I hope you enjoy that.
Please support Adventure Spec inthe same way that they are
supporting us to produce lotsmore fabulous podcasts.
Well, maybe fabulous is pushingit a bit.
All right, see you next time.
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