First Pics of the All Terrain

http://picasaweb.google.com/repose30/PatchesEst81AllTerrain#

Black Eggs

The Board made the decision today to launch a new range of 60’s that’s 60 mm wheels called Black Eggs.  These wheels will be made from rubber on an acrylic/ nylon hub.

It is felt that these wheels will appeal to the market of riders who enjoy cruising to the park on their normal street boards.  There is very little in the way of changes required to fit them; it really is a plug & play scenario…

The wheels will be launched in a range of three colours; green, black and red.

Rubber street wheels should be a welcome advance on existing wheels available on the market.  Nylon wheels tend to increase vibrations where as rubber absorbs vibration's making for a much quieter ride.

Black Eggs will be available on the market within weeks so watch this space…

Cash Money....

Yesterday was a good day for negotiations; the repose brand now has a new investor to help take us forward.  As you are probably aware all fledgling companies on the whole are cash strapped at start up.  The repose brand is no different, but we have been able to put the right people in the right places.  I am proud to think that I have the best team behind the brand that I could find and even if I had a much larger budget I would not change anything at this stage.

We take pride in the knowledge that we don’t have an enormous budget and some of our most innovative ideas have been born out of the need to conserve money.

The team consists of Lynz our graphics & marketing brain, who famously re-branded Zoo York.  Rich is our fashion designer, he has worked as a designer for many London fashion houses.  Oh and me……Oh and me....

Our philosophy is to try and keep it simple, clean and green.  I just hope that we can keep hold of these ideals and not lose perspective as we grow.

Off-piste madness...

Team Repose is off to Austria this weekend for another session of off-piste madness hopefully the avalanche risk won’t be so high.  But that might mean less fresh powder- dilemma’s!!!

The samples should be packaged and shipped by tomorrow morning so they could be in the shops of Ljubljana by the middle of next week.  I can’t wait to test the Off Road tires!  This set has a knobbled studded tread on them.  I actually got the idea from the paving slabs you find at crossings to let the blind know that they have reached a road- bizarrely enough.

We are slowly running out of stickers as I gradually plaster my board, laptops, lifts and any other communal space….

Plastics, Plastics and more plastics

We have finally got to the bottom of why the samples were failing when placed in the press- the plastics manufacturer had used a soft compound instead of the glass/ nylon composite that was previously agreed!!  But with this little problem taken care of we can now move forward with sampling.  The samples should be ready for dispatch on Thursday.

I have a meeting today with the event manager of K4 so fingers crossed we should have this venue secured by the end of the week.

The team repose trip to the dolomites at the weekend was a great success.  The snowboarding was amazing but there is room for improvement with our camera work.

The team will be travelling to Austria this weekend so hopefully we can have a video together in the next week….

Tools, Tools and more Tools

The manufacturer in the UK has just contacted me to say that they are still experiencing problems with the plastics.  It’s now time to have a little re-think.  The current type of plastic they are using is a medium hardness nylon this is now going to be changed to a high density with a longer curing time…

I have just received a selection of images of the new two cavity tools for the All Terrain and Off-Road wheels.  There is also a couple of images of a stack of slick wheels ready for dispatch:

http://picasaweb.google.com/117467279839515030524/Tooling#

Team Repose- Snowboarding

The repose30 snowboarding Team is off to the Dolomites this weekend for some Off-Piste madness!!  The new brand stickers arrive today and our head cams have arrived in the post today- so its all go here at Repose HQ.

The promotions girl from K4 has got back to me about the March launch party and she is interested I have a meeting with her on Monday to discuss details.

Packaging is now finalised; card tubes with red caps- a massive thanks to Phil at BPS!!

Now all I have to do is chase the camera manufacturers for our HD cam for the London video.  I hope that they can come up with the goods.

If you want to be involved in the video or just stand on the sidelines please blog back…

London Calling

In two weeks time I will be flying back to London.  I think I might be desperately short on time as I only have three days to film our first video and visit our new stockists.

The product will be packaged and ready to go by then.  The next step is going to be to get it on the shelves.  I am intending to have a least one retail outlet in each major city in the UK.

If anyone wants to be a stockist please blog back…..

Planes, trains, packaging and videos..

The manufacturer has promised me that the samples will be dispatched by tomorrow morning at the latest.  I will have to wait and see.

Once the samples have arrived in Slovenia I will obviously have to test them out!  So I have decided to christen them with my new friends from the bar Open across the road.  I would ideally like to find the biggest, widest, emptiest tarmac hill in Slovenia and see what they are capable of.  My head cam arrives any day so it should be pretty exciting.

I am off to London in two weeks to start filming our first video.  I am really excited as I haven’t been back in the big smoke for a few weeks now.

I have now short listed three possible venues for our Ljubljana Launch party in the middle of next month.  The club I most like is called K4 and is run by the Uni here.

The packaging for the wheels is now underway as well.  I tried in vane to get circular packaging with a cut out on the side, but I can’t find anyone to manufacture it.  I think I will have to settle with plain old circular tube….

If anyone can help with circular tubes with cut outs please blog back…

Triumphant are the Angels if they get there first...

Having driven nearly 2500 kilometres this weekend across Europe I am finally back in Slovenia.  The Milan Textile show was eventful.  The organisers online bookings had crashed so when we arrived at the show on Friday are tickets were not ready.  However this small problem was resolved swiftly thanks to the aid of our translator Anne Testori!!

Today I am trying to finalise the packing for the wheels.  I am hoping to package them in semi-open cardboard tubes, providing it is not horrifically expensive!!

The skins for the website are now under construction which comes as a great relief.  I am desperate to try and get this business to launch as soon as possible but it felt at the end of last week that everything and everyone was conspiring against me….hence the header!!

I am also trying to find a venue in Ljubljana for a launch party.  If anyone out there has any contacts please get back to me….

T-Minus 10 days and still no stock....

T- minus ten days until the soft launch in Slovenian and I still don’t have a website, any samples or T-shirts.  At the moment it would be fair to say that things are not on track but this is the nature of the beast.

I think unless God grants me a miracle this date may have to be pushed back by a week to allow sufficient time to gather/ manufacture sufficient stock.

Richard our fashion designer will be signing the deal this weekend for the T’s so they should be available in time.  The whole launch now rests solely in the hands of the manufacturer- fingers crossed.

I still haven’t received a reply from the organisers of the Milan show so I may have to employ the help of the mob after all- believe me they will not know what has hit them!!!

I have decided on a positive note to launch in Austria the week after Slovenia and then onto Germany….

If anyone knows any German or Austrian skaters, longboarders, kite surfers or anyone of a boarding denomination please blog back…..

Milan & More.....

I am off to Milan tomorrow evening for the Milano Unica textile show, which will be an experience.  I am hoping to find some new fabrics/ materials for a range of trousers and jackets that we will be launching in the Autumn of this year.

The only problem I have at the moment is that the organisers are not replying to any e-mails and the website says the show is SOLD OUT- Oh No!!!

I do however have a trump card in my back pocket, which is Milanese family who are as good as the Mob in this part of the world.  If the organisers won’t let us in we will have to adopt a different approach.

I ordered a new head Cam made by Oregon Scientific in preparation for our forthcoming and first ever video.  The cam arrives today which will be fun….I can just see now how much trouble I can cause with this gadget….

Angle of Repose

Repose 30 formerly known as patches81 was set up to supply a need that I did not feel was being met.  I had tried unsuccessfully for months to purchase a set of off-road wheels that I could use to ride to the park on.  However each time I found a possible supplier of this type of wheel I was met with disappointment.

I had a meeting in London in October and over the course of the meal we decided to set up a hardware company supplying these wheels and a range of clothing that not only looks appealing but functions.  The aim is to launch a lifestyle brand that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Initially I wanted to launch under the brand name of patches81 but this name was latter replaced by repose30.  Repose embodies our brand in a more self-explanatory way as it represents freedom of movement and chaos.  The angle of repose as stated in previous blogs is the point/ angle at which avalanches occur.

When I was riding in Austria at the weekend off-piste on an avalanche risk day of 4/5 the brand seemed to make sense.  The freedom of movement that you get from riding off-piste, being able to choose your own path is exactly what repose30 stands for.  These wheels and clothes help you choose your own path and go against the grain….

Putting the band back together

I finally tracked down a guy called Dom P last night who I was hoping to sign onto the repose team.  He has agreed after some persuasion to join us as a team rider.  This is great news as I have known Dom for many years and really like his style.  I really think he and his friends will bring something special to the team.

We are off to England and the South Bank in two weeks for a photo shoot and a video session so that we have some stuff for youtube & hopefully sidewalk.

I can’t wait I will let you all know about dates closer to the time….

Images of the new Slick samples

Please check out this link to view images of our very first batch of slick wheels….and yes they are slick!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/repose30/SlickSamples?feat=directlink

Team Riders wanted!

Its snowing really hard today in Slovenia and driving is extremely perilous so I have decided to stay at home.  I am currently trying to sign some up and coming riders to the repose label.  I have a couple of familiar faces from home in mind, but I am hoping to poach some Slovenian riders as well.

But I did discover to my dismay that there are no indoor parks in Slovenian so I imagine the skating season must be quite short as the country is normally under a foot & a half of snow in winter.

I think that I may have to take a trip to Croatia for our first repose30 video.

If you want to audition for a place on the team send us a link of you riding….

Slovenia bound.....

I am back in Slovenia today after a couple of days in London. I visited the manufacturer yesterday to discuss the quality of the samples we received.  The rubber quality is brilliant but the nylon hubs that they were pressed onto came out slightly damaged.  The press pressure has now been reduced and more time has been given for the hubs to post cure.  I am sure that with these changes in place the wheels should be of a higher quality.

I am currently looking into a couple of options for packaging, but generally I would like to keep packaging to a minimum.  I am intending to use recycled cardboard with a simple repose30 sticker on the top.

If anyone has any ideas please write back……

Repose 30- Logo is born...

Our graphic designer Lynz has come up with some great logo ideas for the repose 30 brand this weekend.  The new logo’s will feature on the blog soon.  But all I can say right now is that I’m really happy with what we have so far!

I am in London today with the samples to see how many skate shops are interested in stocking my product. The response from retailers so far has been great and I hope we can keep building on this momentum.

I will also be visiting the manufacture to discuss whether we can increased the recycled rubber content in the wheels without reducing the quality.

At the moment everything is on target for the soft launch on 27/2….so fingers crossed!!

Samples

Today is a massive day in the world of wheels.  The first batch of samples should be arriving with our friends UPS anytime now.

The set of wheels that most excite me are the extreme off-road with the knobbled tread.  I have no idea how they will perform, but I think they will do great in the snow around here.

The idea for the extreme off-road wheels came about one afternoon walking in London and noticing the studded areas on the pavements to let the blind know they are reaching a crossing.  I thought that if you could repeat that tread on a wheel it would be great for riding off-road.

I will let you know how the extreme off-roads get on…..

repose30- Where the idea came from

I was snowboarding at the weekend and there was a particularly bad avalanche on the south-east face. I decided from this experience that I would call my new brand of off-road skate wheels after this event, which really shook me. That is when repose 30 came into existence…

The angle of repose is the point at which an avalanche begins. This angle is normally 30 degrees. Avalanches are terrifying and everyone fears them, but the freedom and destruction represented by this event sums up my brand.