Rapha, nice but a bit pricey?

I slightly regret not buying the double zip version

The Wiggle move frames them as a premium DHB. One of the big elements of Rapha identity to me is a club-exclusivity feel, it gives/gave authenticity. If you can buy their gear on Wiggle already at a big discount it kills that vibe. Must be worth it.

The product currently for sale was in development long before the sale to the Waltons. The "Explore" down products are an extension of the Brevet range, it's been around for years. The flip flops are stupid, but Rapha has always been a lifestyle brand and made lifestyle products (silk scarves, essentials cases, wallets, coffee mugs, bags, B&O headphones) some of which you may use, and others you may not see the point of. I haven't watched any content since watching the first 2 episodes of Race Radio, the latest content may well have some Walton influence as I imagine the marketing cycle is Jan-Dec.

Moan about direction, but don't blame the current state of affairs on the Waltons, you have the original Rapha management to credit that to. They sold a vision to the Waltons and the Waltons merely bought it.

With regard to Wiggle, if you'd made multiple rounds of global redundancies, closed down a whole department of your company and were having to close physical shops, more fool you if you didn't make a dramatic change to your business model. I hope it works out for them, and that they can find the thing that made them successful in the first place. People lose jobs if they can't work it out.

Simply looking at the markets serviced by Wiggle it seems a no brainer. Low cost of entry for Rapha products into a large number of markets via a locally known brand.

I hadn't realised Assos was considered "premium DHB" these days.

You can buy off the Rapha website with a big discount - all of the heavily discounted product on Wiggle is product that gets rotated through the Archive Sale section on the Rapha site.

That said, there are better shipping options and Haribo buying through Wiggle.

@Crumbs yes, personally like the fact you can use the haribo service for Rapha now! Maybe I didn't phrase it right or too sweeping, but seeing them on Wiggle made me see Rapha as less 'exclusive' now in some way, just a gut feeling. Assos is a good point.

Yes I guess 2019 will be the crunch point for them to figure it out which direction they decide to go. In my opinion biggest success with Rapha was marketing. with images and videos they had you almost believed that the tights you paying £80 extra are better. Its almost you wanted to be the part of that Tribe on black bikes rolling in the countryside while you sitting in the office and rethinking your life.

I guess they will need to rethink this and bring it back. Would love to see this brand succeeding in the future. Many people discovered cycling because of them.

I got Core Winter tights with pad for £47, don't care if they came from the same shop as DHB...

Good kit, low price. Couldn't give a fuck about the rest of the "exclusivity" or being in a snobby club. Rapha's best selling point to me has always been quality and design-both of which are now far more hit and miss and are far more likely to stop me buying again in future than their brand image. If anything the snobiness put me off buying stuff as much as the price.

Service wise I don't mind not buying from Rapha direct either... Last core bibs I bought had blatantly been worn/stained/returned and just flogged again without being checked. That's probably less likely to happen via Wiggle too, and their dispatch and shipping is fast and free.

¯_(ツ)_/¯

This. I will probs never buy Rapha again.

Eh? You could buy Rapha over the inter webs and now there are more places you can buy the same stuff.

I have never been to excited by this notion of exclusivity. I bought some of the old Imperial works stuff because I liked it, not because others couldn’t.

Is the concern that people who are too thick to find Rapha.cc may just come across Rapha by chance on Wiggle?

I have never been to excited by this notion of exclusivity

I am. That's my choice, and Ill make it with $.

I don’t see how buying from an online shop was exclusive, unless they vet their customers or refuse to ship to your particular location.

If you're North of Watford, West of the GW Bridge, or North of St Kilda, you ain't getting any Rapha, at least that's how it once was. Maybe only in my dreams.

Also, most people who exclusively shop at Wiggle are probably confused by the .cc for Rapha and think .co.uk is the only acceptable domain going.

You'd stand out like a sore thumb around here (south London) by not wearing Rapha.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-killed-rapha-sydney-jennifer-kay

Just wow.. words fail me but this sentence..

most of them aren’t even au courant enough to own a fixed gear commuter bike.

got my only rapha item in this shop.... the guy there was cool and they had a nice collection of vintage items! (the item i got was on sale...)

Weird article, wrong on a lot of fronts, although I agree it's hard to make money with cafes and bricks and mortar retail at the moment, and that people need to 'support' the businesses that they 'like'.

Said by a 'sometimes cyclist'. Whole thing reads like someone trying to sound clever, rather than make a point - whatever the point actually is, it's lost on me.

I’m been supporting Rapha since it’s launch.. met Simon Mottram a few times through fireflies events. I’m not a rcc club member I do find that article quite unbelievable, truth is I never paid full price for any Rapha items and I have a wardrobe full of gear, especially jackets and bib shorts, jerseys are flogged and jeans stitched at the crotch at least five times.. because I’m a road cyclist not a coffee or biscuit muncher

That's not true. Maybe the crowd you hang out with, but I commute from / in South London daily and a majority does not wear Rapha stuff. Most of my cycling wardrobe is not Rapha either, though that's about to change as I bought some cheap used stuff on Ebay...

The point is to get more eyes on the article, which based on Almac posting here, and everyone else's comments, seems to have been a brilliant success

Al, if I see you at the local waitrose buying biscuits, I'm going to get a picture of it and post it here.. until then...

Who said anything about commuters? I was referring to the south London club/leisure cycling community.

Rapha do biscuits?? I bet it had strip of chocolate across its middle, damn