Rapha closes North American office

[slowpoke]

Originally Posted by charliedid

Cycling will be one part of a full blown lifestyle brand within a year.

We had the fixie boom of the late naughts where every ad included a single speed.

One could argue garvel and the pandemic have turned cycling into a lifestyle one aspires to, but the the tide is ebbing, imo. E.g. cycling shorts were a women's summer fashion item 3-4 years ago and the bike market is softening.

[jimcav]

Originally Posted by saab2000

Then one wash cycle and a thread had come undone from one of the bibs and unwound many meters, bundling up a whole load of laundry. That stuff is strong...I’m tempted to bring it to the local cleaners where they make alterations and see if they can help out.

This was a nice Craft bib. Korean alteration shop.

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by saab2000

Then one wash cycle and a thread had come undone from one of the bibs and unwound many meters, bundling up a whole load of laundry. That stuff is strong. I cut it off, hoping it would be the end of it. Next wash cycle same thing. Now I’m not sure what to do with these bibs. If I had a sewing machine I could probably fix it easily. I’m tempted to bring it to the local cleaners where they make alterations and see if they can help out.

You should definitely contact customer support. IME they'll offer a voucher for 40% of the value of a new pair, but given that you only wore them once they may (should) do a lot better than that. My experiences with their CS have been consistently excellent. FWIW, most of my bibs have at some point begun to lose a bit of stitching from the pad, I'm handy enough with a needle and thread that I can restore them and prevent recurrence, though the stitching looks … far less than professional. Doesn't bother me since only my saddle can see it.

[nickl]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

The Rapha brevet vests I saw on PBP in 2011 were not visible at all, which you can tell just looking at them in a picture. The organizers made everyone wear the official vest in 2019, and I don't remember seeing any of the Rapha vests. Hopefully the motorcycle marshals would have stopped anyone wearing one. Those requirements are written in French law for anyone walking or riding on the road at night, and that was in effect before 2011, so Rapha should have known their vest was not legal in France. I never understood Rapha's approach.

This describes the French (European?) standard.

http://www.rema.org.uk/pub/pdf/non-p...-buyers-v2.pdf

[kurto]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

You should definitely contact customer support. IME they'll offer a voucher for 40% of the value of a new pair, but given that you only wore them once they may (should) do a lot better than that. My experiences with their CS have been consistently excellent...

Totally agreed about Rapha CS. The couple issues I've had over the years (seam tear, zipper issue) were resolved super fast with no-cost replacements sent my way. It's been probably 5 years since the last one, so maybe they've changed, but when I needed them they took care of me. I've also got a couple jerseys and a backpack that I've used consistently for a decade that are in great shape. The shorts and base layers eventually get resigned to trainer duty, but I've never had a Rapha item that seemed to be short-lived or low quality. Also, their bibs (especially the straps) work better for my body than Assos, so the Assos are the last shorts to come out of the drawer in a week :-)

All that said, I don't think I've ever bought anything from Rapha for full MSRP, and I've spent loads and loads of $$$ with them over the years. I'm not a business genius, but I'd imagine that's probably an issue.