Ekoi – The Secrets Behind The Most Popular Cycling Kit In The Tour de France Peloton

We’ve been behind the scenes at Ekoi to find out more about a brand that supplies more cycling clothing, sunglasses and helmets to the Tour de France pros than anyone else.

What does it take to produce some of the best cycling kit in the world, how do you keep pro cyclists happy and what’s next for the French powerhouse?

For more information about Ekoi click here: https://road.cc/content/feature/inside-ekoi-309363

This video contains paid promotion on behalf of Ekoi

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as part of our brand Insider series we’ve been giving you behind the scenes access to the cycling brands that you know and love well today I’m in the south of France at the ecoy HQ to learn a little bit more about a brand that perhaps flies under the radar a little bit in the UK and certainly isn’t afraid to do things differently let’s go and take a look [Music] the eise story starts in Rue Bay in 2001 but they moved here to fredis in the south of France in 2008 at the same time that it launched its first website from that moment on it didn’t take too long for the winds to start racking up in 2009 an eoy helmet was worn to a tour to France stage victory in 2011 they equipped Philip gilber the world number one at the time with revolutionary recovery clothing and since then they’ve equipped multiple World Tour teams one of Welter one in Iron Man World Champs and these days you don’t have to look too far in the Pro pelaton to spot their products in fact this year Echo provides Israel Premier Tech AR samig Lotto Destiny and coffee disc with a combination of clothing helmets and sunglasses oh not to mention the likes of Carlos Rodriguez Guan Martin and tyman arensman all choose eoy shoes so why does so many pro teams and Riders choose eoy and how did the French newcomer become quite why so prevalent in the peleton would you mind just explaining to us what Echo is all about Echo is a specialist of full equipment for Road for gravel for triatlon for MTB but our goal is to make full equipment yeah in all segments our main product is are clothing but we are really specialized in helmets and my goal is to have Innovative products in all categories yeah to make the difference and in all disciplin if it’s possible mhm and I’ve already seen well I know aoy from the pro pelaton um there’s a lot of sponsored teams we have eight teams and we will have four teams at the tour so clearly that is something that’s quite important to eoy why do you choose to work with so many Pros you know it depends because with each team there is a story for example cofidis I was interested to have cofis because I viani is a friend of mine Israel is really also a really nice story because R brge met Seline ven Brook they had the problems with garment and they asked us are you able to to make a product for us and like that it’s not really strategic it’s also it’s a question of a friend and passion also but it seems to be more that it’s not just equipping these riders with kit they seem to really um help develop product yes because uh I’m I know that if we make sponsorship we need to give to the prod to the racers the best products if not it’s a very bad advertising and uh it could be a disaster for a brand and it’s interesting to have their feedback and Frankly Speaking we we take care about the feedback of the racer and the racers come very often at the the company and they are at home here and I remember nro kintana when he lived in Monaco he came a lot three four time per year to to discuss about the underwear to discuss about the gloves the stitching of the gloves some details but for us it’s very important and because we want to give them the best we we improve our products mhm it’s no it’s very helpful for us mhm but Echo isn’t just for the Pro is it no no no of course not because the the pro it’s very expensive for us I explained it that for example for the time traal helmet we spend a lot of money and we sell very few quantity yeah but um the the expertise of the pro is very useful for our range and our in our range we have three different segments we have start product start range is for Rider ride one or two times per week or per month mhm performance segment is for good Rider and ring segment is for Rider who wants the same material you worn by professional Racers Y and Echo really doesn’t seem to be scared to do things a bit differently or try different things for example we’ve got the e- lens glasses here they’re something like I’ve never seen before um the pw8 pedals that we recently made a video on they are they’re pretty revolutionary they’re pretty radical and for me the the in the future we will make the difference in bringing new uh Innovative products on the market if there is only in marketing Innovation it does not work because in each country we have a lot of competitors and we need if we want to be competitive we need to bring Innovative products yeah now we have the capacity to invest to create Innovation because for example for the pedal we we we are on that project for three years now I spent a lot of money it’s not a question of turnover it’s not a question of business it’s question to bring on the market something different and something to to make better yeah mhm that’s that’s uh and it’s it cost a lot but of course it it makes a it brings a lot of pleasure because now we have the possibility to do it and it’s a pleasure to work in that way and Echo is very well established in a lot of Europe um you sell a lot of products in France in Spain Germany I believe it’s quite a big Market Austria Poland Czech Republic Denmark and all markets are growing very fast except maybe in UK I think it’s fair to say that in the UK eoy isn’t as well known um and it’s quite a competitive market clothing helmets sunglasses is so what do you think the eoy can bring can offer riders that is unique I would like to to bring on that market custom product to make products different and uh I think we will succeed step by step the custom products are we have a lot of possibilities for example this will be warned by um our Tre atlet during the Olympic Games and on the road also they will use it we have a lot of possibilities I think we can bring something different really different on the market and we will push that way the customization isn’t just for the pros is it you can go on to the website you can customize your own helmets um and sunglasses is that right yes sunglasses you can choose your of course your your screen but also the color of the frame and uh also you can have your your name on the frame there are a lot of possibilities and we will have a new new model uh available next week with chrome parts it’s it looks very nice it looks very premium products I look forward to seeing that okay so my final question to you is where do you see eoy going in the future it’s difficult to answer to to that question I think we we continue to grow step by step to try to make different product to work on Innovation mhm and we will see it’s not a question of business it’s not a question of turnover because more turnover it’s it means more problems more stock more difficulties we are focus on the products and also to to understand our customers to deliver very fast to deliver well and to continue to innovate clearly this is a product that has been influenced by some of the Eco sponsored athletes um how closely do you work with them and has have they influenced any other products we do work very closely with them it is uh the the the special thing that eoi has is that we work with plenty of teams m not only War tour but at every level yeah and that makes it possible to develop and test for a very long period of time even in a short period of time so we can put a lot of hours in short time I spotted a little model over there I say a little model life-size model of is it is that Patrick lunch yeah okay so yeah so so even when you’re not working with the athletes themselves you’re working with with models yeah we we did scan four athletes in the last six months one is Patrick l so we have four mannequins that we can use in the Wind Tunnel Y and the mannequin is really important especially when it comes to textile test testing okay so the jersey and the bibs yes and Suits Etc today you can really really go to a very good appro approximation with cfd simulations however you cannot still simulate textile when they are moving or when they are vibrating a little bit and one of the peculiarities of ecoi which is uh I think that only a few brands in the world have today is that we can do the full body yeah so when you test everything together you can create the perfect combination with your own products so the teams that are sponsored completely and also every cyclist that wants to have everything from ecoy they know that everything has been also tested MH together for the best performance now I’ve also noticed this this helmet shell that’s quite interesting um so do you mind just talking us through how you go about designing a product from scratch because that all happens here right yep so the the the very first idea comes from either a need in the market that we find yeah a request a specific request from a team or as it happened lately for a change of rules for example within the UCI mhm we really follow the racing so most of our news are based on better performing products that we need and we want to make we start designing and in order to design even just sketching the right product we need to have uh information and datas so for example we of course course we test everything we can find in the market yeah sometimes products are not yet available so we cannot test them but we rebuild the 3D mhm based on pictures images that we have and we try to also simulate what’s going on with the testing in there and then we start doing 3D even even just out of sketches Without Really finalizing we start working on 3D and with these new tools that really allow you to simulate everything you want M you can simulate movements elasticity power transfer uh heat transfer aerodynamics noise everything so we simulate everything we can we compared the simulation with everything we have also from other brands We compare it with what we have designed so different steps uh an example the Newt helmet that will be used at the tour to France we went through 32 different models plus everything we tested that was already there mhm and once you find the best uh object in the simulation or you find what you are looking for then you begin the product the process of engineering which means making it possible yeah and doing things in the faster time is not much for the uh Community but it’s for the racing okay if things change in racing like a new material comes out graphine graphine is today available it’s no more 30 million euro per kilo you can actually buy it and use it you can apply it to a fabric we need to have it right away if we wait 2 years as a standard development time frame 18 to 24 months we will not be any more leading in the racing environment so we need to focus there go out in 6 months use it to give a kind of a Leading Edge to our teams and then we bring it to everybody in a more uh normal M timeline and it’s a little bit of a formula one approach so you maybe do two or three approaches in the same time which is of course it’s not cost effective but it’s time effective and performance also effective so this is an approach that I really really like because it really gives as developers the possibility to simply try multiple things without having in your head I only have one chance I cannot take the risk it needs to be perfect at the first time so yeah uh ecoi is a brand for everybody but it’s a racing brand yeah so we always uh aspire to to be there and it’s always nice to to guarantee the same exact product to everybody yeah okay well thank you very much for joining us um so far we’ve looked at the helmets the sunglasses the shoes and pedals um but a large part of the Innovation at eoy goes into its clothing so we’ve got some items here um and I guess my question is what makes this different to any other clothing that you can buy at Market oh actually here it’s uh the Outlast technology which is used by the NASA initially yeah uh and this is a system of thermal regulation that means you know whatever you’re riding your body is uh creating generating some heat the heat is absorbed and stored into the Jersey MH and then uh your body temperatures cools down and after that whenever your body needs it it will give you back all this heat and um going back to the pros the tour to France is seems to be getting hotter and hotter and hotter each year so I guess that temperature regulation is already important but potentially going to become even more important it is so and how much does temperature how much can it affect your performance oh a lot really uh I mean that kind of Jersey you know can help you uh to cool down your body temperature by one or two degrees which is huge once you’re riding so uh the the heat is real problem you know so we need to find solution and we are still now also working on new products using that kind of cooling Technologies because of this uh climate change also and can you just give us a I’m sure it’s very complicated but can you give us a brief overview of how this technology sort of works actually it’s um micro capsulate capsules which are used into the Fabrics and uh these capsules get you know opened and increased the size uh whenever you the heat is here and you’re seding and then in order to uh give you back release this heat it goes down and becomes smaller so it’s a a kind of uh you know um capsule who is getting bigger and smaller according to the sweat that does sound very technical I never knew that this much research and development went into went into my cycling kit if want to get the behind the scenes look at more cycling Brands then click the playlist popping up on your screen now if you found this video interesting then please give it a like subscribe to the channel for lots more Bike Tech and we’ll see you next time