(relaxed electronic music)
- When I was a kind of up-and-coming cyclist,
there was always a sponsor that I dreamed of having
and in my case, it was Oakley.
It was a tick of approval, if you like,
that you'd made it in the world of cycling.
Sadly for me, I never did,
but today, I'm going to meet some of the current pros
who are, in fact, sponsored by Oakley
and also the guy who's probably got
the coolest job of all within cycling.
He gets to travel the world, meet the pros,
and give 'em their glasses.
Let's go meet him.
So the words the Oakley Guy have been said
by plenty a sponsored athlete over the years.
Now sadly, I don't know what Oakley Guy looks like
or anything 'cause I've never been in that position.
But I've been told to wait here in this location
and, well, I'm going to get to meet him.
It's kind of like a blind date really
but I just hope I don't get stood up
'cause that could be really, really awkward.
Looks like they're here.
I've not been stood up!
Right, let's go.
So I'm here now with John Ohail,
who's the Sports Marketing Manager for Oakley.
Now sadly, I was never a good enough cyclist
to get to meet you, John, in my career as a cyclist,
but does your job actually entail?
- Yeah, so my job as the Global Road Cycling Manager
is to set forth the strategy
for our road cycling program as a whole.
That entails which teams we partner with,
which athletes we partner with,
and then working on the product side as well
with our Product Marketing team,
our Product Development team,
to make sure that the athletes have the right product
for their races and for training.
And then also collecting feedback from those athletes
and giving it back to the team as well.
And then also from a marketing side,
making sure that those athletes
are used in our marketing efforts across the board.
- That's really good to know, actually,
that the feedback from a rider
could well end up with us as a consumer
because, well, they ride their bikes
more than you or I could dream of, I guess.
- Yeah, well they're at the pinnacle of the sport
and so what they say and what their feedback is
is obviously very important to us
and allows us to create a product
that not only is good for a professional rider
but also the average everyday rider.
Most everything that we put on any our cyclists
in the World Tour or anywhere else
is something that's available for sale
for the normal consumer as well.
- Okay, so where exactly are we going
because I've got no idea, I'm not local?
- So we're in Harrogate here.
We're going to go visit a few of the team hotels
and visit with some of the riders
and make sure that they have the product that they need
for the race this weekend.
- I heard you've got a big bag of glasses
and, well, I just want to see
these riders' little faces light up.
- Yeah, like I said, most of the guys know what they want
but sometimes you show you up to a race,
especially a World Championship,
and they're not wearing their normal team kits,
they're wearing their countries' kits,
and so all the colors are different
and so I have to bring a pretty big bag of stuff
to make sure I cover all the bases on that one.
- Brilliant.
Driver, step on it.
Right, big reveal.
I didn't think the bag would be this big.
You told me it was a bag
and I thought it'd be maybe that.
So go on, surprise me, make me jealous.
Show me what you got.
- So in this bag is where I keep
all of the glasses themselves.
So there's everything.
I'm a pretty organized guy.
Especially if you bring this much product,
you want to know where everything is
and be able to find it quickly,
especially if you've got multiple athletes at the same time
coming at you and wanting stuff,
then it becomes a bit disorganized.
Basically, I label them by the style of glasses,
so you'll see Jawbreaker, Sutros, Radar EVs,
and then within each glass, I've marked which colors
I've put within the bags.
Yeah, without the organization like that,
it'd be mass chaos.
Lot of work on the front end
and it winds up paying off when you get here.
- Do you ever get any riders then
who already know exactly what they want
and they say, "John, this is what I want.
"I've no messing about."
- Yeah, for sure.
It makes my life a lot easier too,
so what I'll do is I'll just put it aside already
and pre-package it.
For instance, Jay Thomson,
I know he wears Jawbreaker pretty religiously
and then obviously something a little green
to match his South African kit.
- I've not seen these colors.
I almost don't want to get them out.
Well, I do, actually.
- Yeah, of course.
- Oh, there goes the-- - Nose piece.
- [Jon] Almost like a celeste color.
- [John] Yeah, they call it Crystal Pops,
so it's got the clear top on frame there
and then a little pop of some fun green.
- [Jon] Cool.
- So that's all the glasses
and then in this bag separately, I keep all of the lenses.
So replacement lenses for different conditions
based on the models again.
Again, going back to my kind of OCD organizational skills--
- I like it.
- Yeah, the girls at the office laugh at me,
but I use a colored marker set
that matches the actual color of the lens.
So for instance, if it's a Prism Jade,
I know that's a green lens, so I'll put in a green marker.
Sapphire is blue lens.
Prism Low Low Light's a pink lens.
So at least when they see the bag,
it's easy for them to decipher what they're getting already
and it kind of saves them time
and also lets me know which ones I have.
(futuristic EDM music)
- All right, first visit to them,
we've got Tiffany Cromwell.
Tiff, are you going to go fashion over function
or function over fashion or a mixture of both?
'Cause I know that you're a big fashion fan.
There's no denying it.
So what're you going to go for?
- I'm going to do the mix.
It has to look good, but at the same time,
we have to think about the weather conditions
that we're going to deal with,
so that's where the lens will be very important.
But for sure, I'll be going matchy-matchy.
- So these are actually some handpainted ones
that we did for the Tour de France.
- See, 'cause I can pull it off.
These ones I believe you either need a small face
or a big face to pull it off, not the in between face.
- These came out around Tour of California.
- So by the time this video goes live,
you're probably going to be
probably halfway through your race, I reckon.
What's the feelings like in the legs?
- I'm guessing probably about the time
where we're hitting Lofthouse,
which the legs will be burning,
the first critical point of the race,
you know, when all the action begins, and yeah.
Expect lots of pain but good vibes as well,
'cause I'm sure the atmosphere's
going to be incredible out there.
(futuristic EDM music)
- Yeah, so we're putting Prism Low Light in,
just because the weather here in Harrogate's
been not so nice.
And Prism Low Light's about as light as we have
that's not clear, so it still has some color to it
that brings out some light
and kind of brings out the details on the road
if the weather's bad as well.
Just putting it in a flight jacket right now for Marco.
- Isn't this setup great?
(relaxed hiphop music)
- So John, Nathan Haas just arrived.
You know these riders pretty well.
What do you reckon he's going to go for?
- My bet knowing Nathan is he's going to want a Sutro.
I have a Celeste Green one
that he probably hasn't seen before
that matches the Australian kit.
And then Nathan wears Jawbreaker pretty religiously,
so I'd imagine between the two of those, that's our bet.
- All right, let's put it to the test.
(chuckling)
- I think, um--
- Probably Jawbreaker for the race.
- I think Jawbreaker here.
- [Jon] All right Nathan, when you go for for your colors,
are you thinking outrageous
or just to match up with your kit?
- I either think that really simple, like an all white
or an all black.
I like a lot of the sort of pastel-y colorways
that they've been putting out this year.
So a solid state looks really nice
or I think you got to mix it up
and do something a bit punchy.
- [John] That's the one.
(all laughing)
That's bad Aus.
Look at that.
- Yeah, that's good.
- [John] Those we handpainted
for the Tour de France jerseys,
so those are custom, for sure.
- One of my favorite pairs of Oakleys ever
was actually the first pair I was ever given.
And I was hanging out with an American rider
called Georgia Gould.
This was in 2009.
Georgia comes up to me and she goes,
"I think you'll like this pair of glasses,"
'cause she was sponsored by Oakley.
And it was this raging hot pink pair of Oakleys
and it totally stood out from the kit that I was wearing.
That was the first banging pair of Oakleys I ever had
and I still have them 'cause for me
they have a bit of special meaning.
- You know when you go, if you choose your lenses
based on the weather conditions, what about your frames?
When you ride certain races,
do you always go for the certain frames or not?
- You know, that's a good question.
Yeah, I mean, lenses is obvious,
but frames is a little bit different.
I really like to use the Sutros after training,
just because I feel like they give you
more face cover as well,
so I think it's better for sun protection
and I also feel as if less sort of light
sneaks in through the side on a bigger pair of glasses.
But this one was designed by Cavendish
and this one took a long time to develop
to get the perfect place where the frame starts
where the nose piece sits, so it's not visible.
So for me, this one here is very highly-engineered glasses,
but purpose-built for bike racing.
And I think it also depends on your riding style.
So I'm quite upright, so I never have the issue
of actually seeing the frame on top,
but if you look at a rider like Nils Politt,
most of the time, he's actually quite far forward.
So when he's actually looking through the brow of his eye,
if he has a frame, that's going to be pretty annoying,
so he uses that style of glasses
that is just the frame on the bottom.
So definitely the frame is a massive factor
of the performance of it,
but it also comes down to the style of the rider
and what they're using them for.
(funky rock music)
- So Michael, what are you going for?
- I'm going for some nice glasses obviously,
but like a special color
so my family can easily see me, spot me.
My grandmother doesn't have the best eyes.
She's like, "Michael, wear some funny shoes
"or nice glasses."
- Funny shoes, imagine that!
- Actually, I already now dancing shoes on, all silver.
- Are you going to wear them over the weekend?
- Hopefully I can turn them into gold.
- All right, mate.
I always seem to catch you every race
where you are and you can't really hide.
But I've noticed you've got some pretty cool glasses.
What's the story behind it?
There's some engraving on it.
- Actually, it's probably best to wind it back to 2011,
when I was with Team Sky.
We had World Hemophilia Day coming up
and I asked if I could,
and we were racing in Castilla y León
and I asked if I could wear something red for the day.
And then Team Sky got in touch with Oakley.
Oakley created a one-off set of Jawbones
in a color they called Blood Red
to sort of acknowledge that there is a blood condition.
And I got in a breakaway that day,
Swifty won the stage, so it was great.
And then after a bit of a Oakley hiatus
when I was at Movistar,
I came back to Katusha and we hooked up with Oakley
and said, "look, this happened back in 2011."
They're like, "yeah, yeah, I know, it was good."
I said, "I've now got a charity dedicated to Hemophilia
"called Little Bleeders.
"Can we do something around that?"
Oakley was super, super accommodating with it.
We created, using their casting feature,
a set of Jawbreakers, which is my glasses preference,
and managed to inscribe also Little Bleeders onto the lens
and that's what I've been racing.
That's what I raced on World Hemophilia Day this year
and I've raced in them ever since, so it's nice.
I think it's a statement piece
and the more we talk about it,
the more people will associate the glasses with Hemophilia
and I'm just very grateful to companies as big as Oakley
to support what is actually a rare disease.
It's quite a small disease
but it's one that obviously very close to my heart.
- There we go.
A day in the life of someone I've always wanted to see.
And what was actually fantastic
was how excited all the riders were
to get their new glasses.
Let me know in the comments section
which colors you would've decided on down there,
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