Riding bikes is fun and we believe we’ve had the fun factor dialed all the way up since day one here at Cycle Oregon. So, why did we partner with a bike racing team for 2020? Well, first and foremost, racing is rooted in riding. It takes lots of riding to be good at racing and the folks who really excel at racing are those that simply love to get out and ride. Second, we saw an exemplary level of team spirit in this squad. It’s a collective of many different personalities who combine into something greater than the individual sum of their pieces. Third, the Mettle Cycling crew embodies a spirit of community we find inspiring. Like any team, they have ambitions to place high at events but the core of their mission is to serve the cycling community in ways that connect to the larger world. In this case that world is Oregon, our beloved and shared home state.
The Mettle Cycling Team represents the established cycling traditions of determination, effort, and teamwork but with the modern elements of representation, community service, and a balanced approach to the sport and life in general. They seem to always have a rider in motion somewhere out there, a rider who can lead the group but who also will take time to say hello. They fund raise for cancer research, they create spaces at events for new riders to come into the sport, and they make riding look good. They represent all the qualities we want the world to know about cycling in Oregon and about what we do here at Cycle Oregon. About us in a recent team blog post they say, “Their work is hugely impactful and generates community connections that would not otherwise overlap.”
We are excited to have their support in making even more community connections and hoped their 2020 jersey reveal would come at one of our events but this crazy year changed everything in the world of bikes. In their typical fashion of creative determination, Mettle has this to say about the launch of their new team kit, “To be clear, Mettle has sworn off racing until a long list of requirements are met and we’re so not even close to a single one of them. But everyone has found their second passion or a singular constant in their life that has occupied their time more than training and racing and we took those themes and applied them to this year’s kit release. We combined the talents of our four team photographers and sent them on assignments to capture it all from a safe distance. So here it is, Mettle’s new 2020 Road Kit, COVID-19 Edition.”
We look forward to riding together with these fun folks, (and you, too!) sometime very soon. Fun first, no doubt about it.
– All photos courtesy of Mettle Cycling.