Sponsored riders. What do you actually get from your sponsor ?

Not me, but my sister, who is a top 10 world ranked triathlete (and will be at the 2012 Olympics – go sis!)

She gets most things – Clothes, shoes and sunglasses are Adidas, bikes are MBK, other bits from Hutchinson and Mavic.
Bikes are on a season loan, but she can buy them for peanuts at the end of the year if she wants.
Weirdly she co-owns a wetsuit company (Mako Wetsuits [/url]) who sponsor quite a few top triathletes, but she has to wear another brand due to sponsorship.
She also gets race entry, flights, and bonuses for doing well, and money from her club. But she is a professional, so it’s a job. And a bloody hard one too!

I just get hand-me-down sunglasses. Which was especially nice a few years ago when Oakley sponsored her 😆

I race/ride for TORQ performance mtb team and it’s around the same as gee, which I’m very happy with 🙂

I used to be sponsored by Fitness First and got free access to the local one, not all of them but was still handy.

I also used to be sponsored by YAK, they manufactured kayaking kit, they used to give me £2k+ worth of kit every race season.

Several years ago at the Cheddar Bikefest, we got pipped to top spot by a team sponsored by Pieminister pies. They got free pies and they still won (albeit not the competitive cat).

I design all our club kit. it’s brilliant 😉

But jebus wept have you seen most cycling club jersey’s? Is there a national agreement that they should be designed by the local branch of the RNIB? Most of them are such a clash of colours and shapes that it’s impossible to tell them appart from a distance! Wouldn’t be so bad if they picked a jersey manufacturer and had them made in X and Y colours for the pannels, club ‘crest’ on one brest, jersy manufaturer on the other, sponsors logo on the arm. But they’re just zig zags, polygons and every square inch has logos’s on it. I’d rather race in my boxxer shorts.

If club jerseys looked more like the stuff people actualy buy from the shops I might actualy buy one. If it was socialy acceptable to wear team kit the only one I’d even look at would the the Rapha (if it wasn’t silly money).

O RLY?

I give you this years Team Bullheart kit!!!!!

mboy speaks sense,

i am slow to medium slow but i ride for one shop, i have another shop who would ‘sponsor’ me with kit if i asked and i have been asked if i want to ride for another team who are primarily tt but are having a mtb arm.

why do people want to give me kits and stuff at trade? it ain’t because i’m going to get close to a podium it’s because i’ll be visible, well turned out, i’m a nice man (even if i do say so myself). in other words, i’ll represent my sponsor well. i have a rapport with each of the groups.

to ride for shop ‘A’ but wear clothing represent shop ‘B’ or a rival brand in disrespectful. There’s little cost involved in getting unbranded arm warmers or other accessories. If i were the sponsor i’d be well annoyed.

I ride for http://www.ticket2ridebc.com who are also the Canadian Commencal, IXS and Spank importers.

So in return for promoting T2R and trying to pursuade people to holiday there, I get team kit, Commencal bikes at canadian trade minus 10%, (so roughly 45% of UK price), Maxxis tyres, trade on IXS equipment, trade on Spank equip, free accomodation in Whistler for 2 weeks.

Basically I holidayed there in 2005 and discussed a marketing proposal with them on how to promote T2R in the UK and they asked me to set up a DH team. It doesn’t really cost them anything to sponsor me, just supplying marketing material. As mentioned above, look for an opportunity what YOU can provide to them.

I was very lucky and got the chance to play pro paintball

I was playing in a team that were top 5 maybe top 3 on a good day in the UK. We were a very well sponsored team. We had two main sponsors one gave a set value of guns and kit we could take per season. We often then sold this on, converting it into flights, hotels and food for European tounaments. As the value was more than we could use, by selling it on it would help promote the products. Our other sponsor paid all our paintball bills, we shot about 3 million balls a year!

In return we played 5 European tournaments and around 8 in the UK. In our off time we trained every weekend both days and one evening a week in the summer, we got December off. Always promoting our sponsors as we went. We had a contract stopping us using anything but the companys kit.

All said and done it still cost a fortune but I was one of the lucky ones.

Now I ride bikes as I am old and slow, its alot cheaper.

I reckon to sum up if someone gives you something for free or cheap to do something you love, you should in return promote them and think yourself the luckest man ever.

DYE was our main sponsor best in the business (shameless plug)

i have found a much better video

and yes it does hurt.