Dragons’ Den reject peddles toward international success

AFTER being laughed out of the Dragons’ Den just two years ago, the plus size cyclewear brand, Fat Lad at the Back is on the road to success with plans to expand internationally.

Founder, Richard Bye – who is known to fellow cyclists as the ‘fat lad at the back’ – coined the idea in 2013 after a cycling trip in the Alps and later that year launched the brand, selling cycling garments specifically designed for “normal sized blokes”.

He said: “I wanted to really enjoy this trip and not be in sweaty Nylon t-shirts and padded shorts, so I had some custom kit made.

“And whilst I was in the Alps, I just thought to myself there’s loads of us out there that must be having exactly the same problem – people who don’t want to squeeze into ill-fitting Lycra, so we’ll create something for the masses.”

“Even now, you might find you’ll be able to get larger, proper man’s size stuff in some brands but typically what they’ve done is just taken your usual template and made it bigger so it doesn’t fit very well or its over compensating in some areas and not in others.”

When Fat Lad at the Back was created, Richard, his wife and his team conducted extensive research to find out exactly where the body holds its fat, allowing them to produce cyclewear that would fit larger men in all the right places.

After launching Fat Lad at the Back, the company found they were inundated with messages from women demanding the same products and so six months later, Fat Lass at the Back was born with templates specifically-made to fit the curvature of the female form.

He said: “Your typical ladies cycling garment will have a curve in it up to about 2cm, because female Olympic cyclists and most very fit female cyclists are pretty androgynous and you don’t get that much curve within the body and generally what happens is if there’s larger women cycling they would have just worn larger men’s stuff before.

“Nobody went up in sizes at all for the ladies – with our garments you’ll get up to 5 inches of curve within them and they’re several inches longer as well.”

However, Richard emphasises that the brand is not just for “fat people”, its sole purpose is to empower people to get on their bikes regardless of their appearance and fitness level.

As well as producing cyclewear for larger men and women, Fat Lad at the Back also encourages cyclists to get together and ride out in large groups with its Sportive events held across the country.

Customers were so fond of the idea, they even created their own Facebook groups named after Fat Lad at the Back in various locations, in order to organise local rides with fellow cyclists within the community.  

Richard said: “It has been adopted by people on mass because of that whole community spirit, we’re not about being elite, we’re just about getting people together and experiencing a nice way of getting fit.”

Having already sold their products to various stockists in Yorkshire and other areas of the UK, Fat Lad at the Back now has ambitions to sell its products in stores across America and Australia.

“When we first started we thought we’d have this little website where we could throw a few shirts out and get into a few cycling shops.

“We didn’t have ambitions for it to become a major business we just wanted to give people an option, we knew what we wanted to do in terms of community, that’s always been a core DNA from the beginning, we just launched it as quickly as we could and we’ve not been able to catch up with ourselves since.” He added.