About mttl
Ok so... Mettle Cycling is run by me: Randall. Always has been. We're not a "real company" kinda like KD6-3.7 isn't a real boy. Close enough to fool most but not so real enough to have a warehouse of racks on racks on racks of rad cycling shit. There's been a brand only slightly longer than there's been a team, but Mettle has been an awesome vehicle to create a lot of fun things and bring a lot of people together.
When Covid hit, it really took the jam out of my donut and Mettle was a little stale for a while. So at this point it's either kill it or reinvigorate it. Obviously, it survived the face lift and we're back to party pace.
I hope you dig some of the things Mettle does and come back often.
In 2015, still a puppy in my cycling experience, I decided there was a need for high quality, low quantity, handmade cycling gear. All of the things I made were available for cheap from China but Portland being what it was at the time, it was much cooler to produce domestically sourced goods in a thriving community of cycling - mostly inspired by the meteorological features of the Pacific Northwest and the tough riders that thrived there.
I started sketching ideas, sewing prototypes, and finding help producing these items at a larger scale. These ideas were so niche it was crazy (and kinda ridiculous). Contemporary brands of the time such as Team Dream Team, The Athletic, and others all blossomed on an Instagram of the past; posting the most epic of butt shots and dramatic black and white suffering. It was a race to influencer status and an online following that would buy everything considered "cool."
EARLY PRODUCTS
LET'S RACE BIKES
In 2016, we added a small racing program and started figuring out how to run a proper amateur team. It went from a group of Roadies for a few years, to acepting that fat tires equal more fun and more diversity is even better. Soon we expanded beyond a few idiot dudes to an organization trying to bring fun to the community and help under-represented groups get a little closer to the fun of racing bikes.
