June 2020 – cyclespeak

‘They were just mesmerised by the whole process of getting dressed for a ride. Why you wear a base layer and what goes over what. And we kind of let them run with it because we found it fascinating to see all the different combinations. Long sleeved base layers with a short sleeved jersey; the sock length conversation.’

Maria Olsson is describing the first face-to-face meeting between Rapha – where she oversees projects as their Head of Design – and recreational brand Outdoor Voices. Following an introduction by a mutual friend, the two teams came together in the summer of 2018 for a cycling adventure in Mallorca; the smile on Maria’s face as she tells her story hinting at the sense of fun and discovery they all enjoyed during this Mediteranean idyll.

‘Outdoor Voices has a mission to Get The World Moving and this really spoke to us at Rapha,’ explains Maria. ‘But although they believe that Doing Things is the surest way to a happy and healthy life, they didn’t do cycling and that’s what we’re all about. So why not bring them along on a journey to discover how they feel about riding bikes?’

For the experienced Rapha cyclists, the group rides they hosted proved an informative opportunity to view the ride process from a non-cycling perspective. But as the trip coincided with the Mallorca 312 sportive, when it came to booking bike hire for their US guests, they soon came to realise that most of the island’s rental bikes were already accounted for. Managing to locate a bike shop able to accommodate their requirements, the Rapha team then discovered they’d been allocated a number of incredibly expensive titanium bikes. When the Outdoor Voices party turned up – in full Rapha kit but wearing trainers and asking how the brakes worked – Maria recounts how the young girl behind the shop counter appeared a little anxious.

‘After we’d reassured her that we all worked in cycling and would look after everyone, we got ourselves sorted and off we went. And they all excelled; shouting greetings to the other cyclists they passed as they pedalled up the climbs in their flat shoes. For us, so accustomed to all the etiquette and unspoken rules of riding – which can sometimes be a little daunting when you first start out – it was refreshing to spend time with the Outdoor Voices team who were so completely not precious about the whole experience. And in terms of this shared journey, we learned so much about how cycling should be and how it can feel for people when they get that first burst of excitement from riding a bike.’

Punctuating the group riding with team meetings, although Maria’s designers had arrived with a range of fabric samples, it was the island itself that ultimately provided the inspiration for the colours and graphics of each individual item.

‘The weather was beautiful and we’d all bonded over our sensory enjoyment of these beautiful landscapes. And this shared appreciation coalesced around the theme of terrazzo which is commonly used in Spanish architecture. A flooring material that you almost forget to notice in its subtlety.’

‘But this is what’s so exciting,’ Maria continues, ‘because we didn’t arrive in Mallorca with this reference but left with a unifying theme for the collection. The small pieces of brightly coloured marble and glittery granite that are set into the concrete flooring spoke to us of individual elements that brought together, form something whole and beautiful. Much the same way that cycling can build communities and enrich the lives of those that ride.’

Reflecting on the various steps her designers have taken since these initial concept stages, Maria describes how fundamentally they set out to make the best possible cycling kit but with a mindset that acknowledges just how much fun you can have when riding a bike. That the aesthetics of the range represent a certain lightheartedness and a sense of inclusivity that are vital aspects of the sport she herself loves.

‘We want everyone who buys into the range to feel happy wearing it on the bike,’ she suggests. ‘In terms of its functionality – because that’s what we do at Rapha – but also in their emotional response to the designs. We want you to know how amazing you look.’

‘So between us, we agreed who was going to own what parts of the range. My team at Rapha designing the specific cycling elements and Outdoor Voices taking charge of the t-shirt and sports bra because that’s what they do really well. We followed up with regular online catch-ups before they flew over to London where we had a fit session with the first prototypes. The whole process taking over a year and a half to come to fruition but that’s because we took the collaboration really seriously and wanted to launch a range that felt 100% right.’

With the individual pieces offering a host of innovative features and details, the idea for the overlapping panels in the wind jacket was influenced by the Outdoor Voices yoga clothes that wrap around the body to make the wearer feel supported and comfortable. An aesthetic motif that was translated into a Rapha functional feature with the ventilated back of the bib shorts.

‘We got through so many prototypes to get everything right,’ explains Maria with a smile. ‘The jacket alone had five or six versions before it was signed off. But it’s all about refining each stage so that it works exactly how we want it to work.’

‘Playing with this theme of transformations, we considered the on and off bike uses for each piece of the collection. Adding a sense of fun with these little discoverables such as the Essentials Case that you can take with you when you go to the shop. And because we had some excess material in the lay plan that we could put to good use, why not?’

Not only were Rapha and Outdoor Voices sharing the same design journey, the collaboration extended to feedback from the Canyon-SRAM women’s cycling team. Frustrated with traditional cap designs and wanting to accommodate their long hair, the professional riders requested a space in the rear panel that would allow them to ride comfortably with a ponytail. A female-specific problem that Maria argues isn’t a gimmick but a reasoned and functional response.

‘Every collaboration is different,’ she concludes, ‘and I really believe in what we’ve achieved with Outdoor Voices. There’s been an enormous amount of hard work from everyone involved but it’s also been super fun. I’m not sure exactly how it happened but for this project it’s been predominantly women on my team. We’ve compromised together and we’ve agreed together. And after years of working at Rapha, I can honestly say that my female colleagues are the most amazing women I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet.’

Maria Olsson

Rapha

Outdoor Voices

Modelled in Manchester by Georgia Keats

Sketchbook imagery kindly provided by Agata Jasinska

Photography by @openautograph

I was reading the most beautiful essay by the art critic Peter Schjeldahl. This one particular line standing out as being so acutely relevant to my view of the world: ‘Nothing can be wholly lost that lives in Art’.

And this made me think about the time when I was living in New York and visiting the MET. A tiny still life by Cezanne tucked away in a corner depicting some apples and pears that had me standing with tears rolling down my cheeks.

Because it’s these emotional responses that stay with me. Moments in my life when I’m riding my bike and I feel my heart is going to explode because it simply doesn’t have the capacity for all that beauty.

Krysten Koehn has just returned from a solo ride to the west of Amsterdam and is now sitting in the window of her first-floor apartment with the spring sunshine lighting up her face. Currently waiting for a new passport after applying for citizenship in the Netherlands, this is the latest in a series of moves that have been a feature of her personal and professional life to date.

Brought up in Colorado, in her early twenties Krysten spent six months backpacking through Europe where she felt immediately at home. Her goal of once again returning in a more permanent fashion influencing her decision to study a Masters in Art Education that initially led to a teaching post in Kuwait.

‘I was able to travel a lot and it was a very rich time. I’m really thankful that I went and really thankful that I’m not doing it now [laughs].’

Another move to accept a position teaching at a Swiss boarding school coincided with her introduction to road cycling. As she was living in a tiny ski station high in the Alps, an uncompromising baptism of fire with Krysten describing the roads as going either straight up or straight down with very little in between.

‘I would probably still be there if I hadn’t been accepted to the Yale School of Art. And then, when I arrived, I didn’t touch my bike for the whole of the first semester; it just sat in my apartment with flat tyres, gathering dust. Not only was the course crazily overwhelming but I was also readjusting to life in the States and the transition from being a teacher back to a student again.’

As things began to somewhat settle, Krysten learnt that the Yale cycling team held weekly open rides and decided to join. Recruited onto the women’s race team, she now had a coach and structured training; a set of clear, measurable goals that considering the pressures of her course she found to be a salvation.

‘After graduating, I moved to New York where I met a couple of guys riding in Central Park,’ Krysten remembers. ‘We got chatting and they explained how they raced for the Rapha NY team before inviting me to join. This came at a really fortunate time because finding a community in New York isn’t always that easy and life can be lonely even though you’re living in a city of twelve million residents.’

‘The next couple of years were spent travelling between my home in New York and a job I found as a guide with a luxury cycle tour company based in France. But it was an Arctic Circle artist residency that decided where I would next be living. Based on a tall ship sailing out of Spitsbergen, I met a Dutchman on the crew, fell in love and that’s how I ended up in the Netherlands [smiles].’

Although not together any more, Krysten has settled in the small city of Haarlem to the west of Amsterdam where she teaches at the American School at The Hague and continues to work as a practicing artist. Her feelings on riding her bike when first moving to the Netherlands perhaps a little surprising in a country renowned for its cycling culture.

‘I was actually really uninspired by the landscape and almost stopped riding completely for a couple of years. After guiding bike tours in the Alps and Pyrenees and growing up in Colorado, the Netherlands felt like the flattest country in the entire world. And it’s not like it doesn’t have its own unique beauty and charm but there’s just no elevation and the weather sucks. It’s very windy almost all of the time and it’s often cloudy or rainy. I was still a Rapha ride leader for those couple of years – forcing myself to go out now and then to fulfill my responsibilities – but I just wasn’t feeling it. And then something possessed me to sign up for a three-day Rapha ride from Amsterdam to Paris. I tried on multiple occasions to get out of it but the RCC coordinator just wouldn’t have it.’

As things turned out, the experience completely changed Krysten’s cycling life. The shared suffering and group camaraderie made her view riding in Amsterdam from a fresh perspective. That although she didn’t have the same towering landscapes, the sense of community was equally as important. And finding that once she’d found that community and immersed myself in it, all Krysten wanted to do was to ride her bike.

‘In the Amsterdam area it’s mostly wide open polders with a network of canals. Pastoral farmland very much like a Flemish painting. Everything is flat; even the light is diffused because there’s so much moisture in the air. And then when you get closer to the sea, the paths through the dunes are really beautiful. The rippling movement of the sea grasses with all the colours very muted. A unique kind of beauty that just needs you to scratch the surface in order to appreciate it.’

Looking at Krysten’s body of work, this sense of landscape and movement appears fundamental to her creative process. A way of both thinking and feeling that’s not only provoked by her immediate surroundings but has strong ties to another location where she feels equally inspired: Girona.

‘Girona is like an amusement park,’ Krysten suggests. ‘Just magical; like nowhere else in the world. There’s obviously a reason why two thirds of the pro peloton live and train there and it’s easy to talk about the quiet roads and considerate drivers. But for me, it’s all encompassed by this general sense of belonging. A golden Mediterranean light that softens everything from the mountains down to the sea. Roads that unfurl like ribbons; undulating so perfectly with a satin surface.’

Spending the summer of 2019 working as a creative consultant for the Service Course, Krysten built another community centred around her friends Christian Meier and Tristan Cardew and the mechanics she rode with after they finished work. A new bike build – a custom steel Speedvagen – providing a link between the two cities that was heightened after Krysten returned to the Netherlands and was hit by a car barely 50 metres from her place of work.

‘I was very lucky and thankfully I could stand up and walk away but there was a part of me that died when I first saw the bike. A lot of well wishers expressed the view that it was more important that I wasn’t seriously injured and while I obviously agree with that, this bike is so much more than just a recreational tool or method of transportation. To me, it feels like an extension of my body. The primary tool of my artistic practice. When I ride it’s as if I’m drawing lines on the Earth; helping me to feel connected wherever I go which as a transient person is so very important. And because my bike is easily the most prized of my possessions, seeing it warped and splintered absolutely broke my heart.’

Now fully restored, Krysten describes her bike as feeling at home in Girona and more of a showpiece in Amsterdam, where its paint scheme provokes an unfailingly positive reaction. And as it’s fabricated from steel rather than featherweight carbon, it suits the flat, windy riding of the Netherlands but will still happily climb all day in the hills that surround the Catalan city.

‘My bike was a tangible way of connecting these places when last summer I planned to ride the 2000 kilometres that separates them. I had a ten-day window between finishing for the school holidays and starting to work with the Service Course, so I just decided to ride there. Why not?’ Krysten says with a smile. ‘Because when you’re carrying whatever belongings you need on your person or attached to your bike, that frees you to live completely in the moment. Allowing you to be 100% present in where you are and what you’re doing.’

‘I’ve previously been on bikepacking trips but this one was all about efficiency. And to motivate myself, I’d broken the route down and pre-booked accommodation. Some days had over 4000 metres of climbing and others were almost pan flat. But every day had its own unique feeling and moments which were super poignant.’

Deciding that she wanted to create an artistic response to her journey, on arriving in Girona she immediately sat down to paint a series of watercolors that captured a selection of her most salient memories.

‘I wanted to preserve those remarkable experiences; to burn them in my mind in terms of the colour and linear movement. Because in art, nothing is forgotten, and these paintings are a permanent reminder of those moments in time that I rode between my two cities. Moments that happened then and happened there. And that’s where they live.’