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news
RCC rideSimon Mottram explains Rapha Cycling Club relaunch as brand aims for big growth in membership
In the third and final part of our interview with Rapha founder and CEO Simon Mottram, he explains how the business has repositioned its Rapha Cycling Club (RCC) membership scheme to make it more accessible to customers as part of a series of changes in the business following its change in ownership a little over two years ago.
In the previous articles in the series, Mottram shared his views on the growth of off-road and adventure cycling and how Rapha aims to harness that trend, as well as how it is reducing its reliance on discounting to restore the business to profitability.
At an event at Rapha's North London headquarters last week in which RCC members heard about new initiatives and products and were able to put their own questions to the team, road.cc asked Mottram where he saw the business in five years’ time.
He revealed that growing RCC membership by making it more affordable and less tied to locations of Rapha Clubhouses is a key part of the company’s strategy.
“We made a loss last year, our sales went backwards,” he explained. “In five years, we should be two times the size we are now and making decent profits. That’s what we have to do and what we’d like to do.
“But more interesting than results will be in five years, I’d like the RCC to be way bigger than it is now, 50,000 to 100,000 members, it should be like that.”
With 13,000 members currently, it’s an ambitious target, but one that Mottram hopes to hit through decreasing the cost of membership to a little under £6 a month – around half the current cost – and making it less dependent on location.
Making such a fundamental change to a membership package risks alienating people already signed up to it, so Mottram wrote to existing members in November explaining how RCC was evolving and why, before they heard the news elsewhere.
“We did a whole relaunch a month ago, and I wrote to members,” he explained. “So, we haven’t broadcast it, but I wrote to the members and explained it and how it's changed and essentially what we what didn't want was the RCC to be a clubhouse-specific programme.
“We've got 23 clubhouses, we may have 50 clubhouses in the future, we may have 30, it doesn't really matter.
“We won't be able to have a clubhouse everywhere where somebody who's a great Rapha customer, or someone who loves the sport, is going to be based” he continued.
“We wanted to divorce the membership benefit from being near a clubhouse, so we've reduced the price so it's more affordable for people – it’s now £70, not £135, so it is pretty significant.”
The idea, Mottram said, was to “put it into the area of somewhere that's good value for anybody who's interested in what we do and who buys a bit a bit of our products,” rather than it being reserved for the keenest customers who happen to live near one of its clubhouses.
Besides the reduction in the cost of membership, other tweaks have been made to the RCC offer, which was first launched five years agi, a decade after the business started trading in 2004 through its Rapha.cc website; the .cc domain, officially relating to the Australian territory the Cocos Islands, was chosen since it can also be taken as referring to ‘cycling club’ – the very reason we at road.cc adopted it four years later.
Mottram explained some of those changes to us. “Coffee was free to members, it’s now half-price, but we’re opening up partner cafés all over the world, where members can convene, and they get half-price coffee,” he said.
“They don't have to be in a clubhouse and we've made the price of bike hire slightly higher, so it’s not just about that either, just high rollers who go on business trips to Tokyo and San Francisco … it's an amazing service and I love that because I do that sometimes but that's not our core member.”
So, 15 years on, is Mottram still as passionate about the business as he was when it was founded?
“Totally, yes. We have more potential now than we’ve ever had, which I'm so excited about and I think we've gone for a necessary adjustment for a year or two. After the acquisition we were all, hang on a minute, we’ve been growing at 35 per cent every year for 13 years.
“I've created this very complicated and beautiful but difficult to manage thing.
"Let's just do a bit of housekeeping let's make sure that we set ourselves up in a bit more sensible way.
"Let's reset what we’re trying to do and go at it again."
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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46 comments
Of course it is. RCC is not some kind of kum by ya entity seperate from the business. It sits inside the business plan as a means to promote their brand and sell their products. If you actually think the Rapha business and RCC are 'unrelated', you are a fool.
I didn't say RCC and Rapha were separate. I said the issue of your non-employment and RCC were separate.
You've raised a complaint about your experience of Rapha's HR process on a story about Rapha Cycling Club. Those two aspects are entirely separate other than you now have a chip on your shoulder about everything Rapha.
nah the interview was managed by a Rapha Manager who I was in comms with directly. I'm not going to give you the ins and outs but they are tied in with RCC. It is completely unacceptable to just ghost someone who has set their time aside applying for a role. If someone I had managed were found to have done that to anyone, whether a customer or an applicant, they'd be writing an apology letter by hand. It is unprofessional and a sign of a toxic attitude.
Enjoy your 'club' chaps, it's a culture (and a bullet....) I'm glad to be swerving... If you're happy to be treated that way by anyone then I suppose you deserve what you get in life. Pretty chuffed that my other option in cycling turned out to be with a great set of people who don't mug their stakeholders off like they're shit on the sole of a shoe.
Get over it and move on. Are you still hung up on the first person who dumped you?!
"I've created this very complicated and beautiful but difficult to manage thing."
Translation: "we expanded too fast, did stupid things that didn't work and now someone else is making the big decisions."
Most clubs let you ride and/or socialise with members before you commit. How do people who want to join RCC decide that this club's culture is right for them? Is there some kind of questionnaire to fill in to work out if you're aspirational enough?
That sort of thing happens everywhere. Shit happens. I wouldn't spend too much time on it, let it go and move on.
And yes, it's a standard business like any other. If you thought it was something else then perhaps that company isn't right for you.
Big men in pink stripes and children first to the life raft. This ship has a £30million hole and is sinking
I’m here too, and I’ve just joined. Velusso at Ditchling is the partner cafe locally. Would be good to get a few more, given big cycling scene here, but the LBC’s on the decline
Turns out there's only 10 RCC members in Brighton.
But like all other good clubs, they let you join them for a free ride first to find this out and see if you wanted to join, right?
I've no idea as Rapha didn't have any info on meeting places etc! I guess the only way to find out is to stop one of them if you see them out on a ride. Which is slightly odd.
Couple more now! Maybe see you there...
If you ask me I think they've killed it. The value of the membership has gone.
£135 with a year free coffee and cheap bike hire was a great deal. What are you getting for your £75 quid now? Their offer, despite being cheaper, is now expensive for what you're getting.
I've often thought about joining but haven't as Brighton doesn't have a club house. There doesn't seem to be a way to find out how many members are in your area unless you join; they do exist as I've seen them but no idea where they meet etc!
Once you have joined the RCC you can join the forum (RCC App) and find riders in your area to ride with. You can also get the info about Partner Cafe’s.
I'd rather find this out before parting with £70!
As an old member, I would rather keep the free coffee deal and pay more for my membership, but I understand why making the membership cheaper can be a good idea to increase number of members. Also, I would really appreciate the size of the club to rise so that we can continue to have almost daily rides all week and year. When choosing rcc as a club, I considered other alternatives, but really feel that the community, rides and benefits are great. Furthermore, I really appreciate Simon taking time to ride with us and listen to what we think and how we ride, and I got the feeling that he has created rcc out of passion more than pure business interest.
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