A miraculous lucky strike: The first year of cooperation was a small cycling miracle!
Nobody expected a miracle, but it happened. The cooperation of the Force brand from Zlín with the Belgian world tour team Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert, a team of Czech matador Jan Hirt, bore the desired fruit! In the very first year of cooperation, the team managed to score and the Czech cycling equipment Force was a part of it! Expanding the range of cycling products for professional racers was a step in the right direction. The Force brand took a chance and proved to be the right partner for events like the World Tour.
Supporting the Belgian world tour team Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert was just the ticket. The cycling assortment of the Zlín-based brand Force helped to pave the way to great success. And not just any success! During the last season of the Spanish Vuelta, the team managed to secure the red jersey for the leading rider and hold the lead for an incredible 9 days. "We didn't expect miracles, but it happened. No one expected Wanty to be better than, let’s say, Quick-Step. After all, it was their first time on the World Tour, and their budget is definitely not comparable to Ineos or Astana, so they could buy up everything," says Dalibor Kmenta, owner of the company KCK and its Force brand, which thanks to this minor miracle have started to become more widely known in European countries.
It is primarily smaller teams in the Czech Republic, but also from Europe that have shown interest in the equipment. "We usually refer them to our local distributor to negotiate directly with them, and we support the distributor, subsidise some of the products or even give them free of charge. But we certainly do not throw money into a bottomless pit just because we like cycling. On the other hand, if we didn't like sports, we wouldn't do it. Cycling is our livelihood, we want it to work well, and who should support it if not us?", says Kmenta, evaluating the benefits and pitfalls of sponsorship.
New year, new challenges
Last year's successes demonstrated that the cooperation has taken off in a positive direction, and so the Belgian stable's riders will travel with the equipment from Zlín around the world, from Argentina to the Middle East, based on the programme. Preparations for 2022 began in the first half of 2021 to make sure everything was done on time. The last two years have been difficult in terms of transport and suppliers. Several consignments leave the central warehouse in Otrokovice one at a time for Tournai in Belgium, where the Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert team is based.
"We are currently preparing to ship the suitcases, and since we are striving to improve our service again, we are now planning to label them," Kmenta explains, adding: "Last year we didn't manage the name tags, they were just on the suitcases. Now each rider gets a helmet in a shipping bag, with their name, tag, flag, model designation, plus information on whether the helmet has MIPS technology or not." 
However, meeting the demands and wishes of professional racers is sometimes quite a challenge. Compared to the average user, they often have non-standard body proportions to make them lighter and more agile on the bike. "A standard customer is 180 centimetres and even if he is good, he will be 75 kilos, whereas these guys with the same height are 69 kilos. And their overall appearance corresponds to that, not just their head and face," Kmenta explains, adding: "Out of the 33 competitors last year, only about three wore helmets in the L/XL size, the others in the S/M size, and some of them were too big and didn't quite fit as well as they would have liked. So they made special padding for them. When you look at the racers, they're wearing everything fitted, tight, aerodynamic, and they demand the same from their helmets."
Some of the models offered by the Zlín-based company must therefore be customised and then properly tested, which can take many months. Often minor and new adjustments come directly from the racers who are trying to be even faster on the track. As in the case of Dutch rider Taco Van Der Hoorn, who came up with plugging the front hole during the Giro d'Italia cycling race. "He evaluated it in such a way that taping over would give him a slight boost through better aerodynamics," says Kmenta, explaining: "He's obsessed with it, he rides the narrowest handlebars possible, he rides very cramped over and now he's gone to such detail. And it motivated us that we are currently looking into how to plug the hole. By the time Taco demonstrated it, there wasn't time to react right away, so we started addressing the modification in late September, had the first prototype delivered by the end of December, started production in January, and should have the new models in April."
Goods for racers
By the time the racing season starts, the riders in the team have all the goods at their disposal:
- AMBIENT racing sunglasses - 120 pcs civil
- SCOPE sunglasses (Wanty-Gobert edition) - 250 pcs
- additional sunglasses are supplied in case of the individual needs of the racers, for example with adjustments for the insertion of dioptric lenses, and as with helmets there is an increase when a new model is introduced
- LYNX + LYNX MIPS helmets - 70 pcs
- ORCA + ORCA MIPS helmets - 70 pcs
- NEO+ NEO MIPS helmets - 70 pcs (numbers are subject to change in the event of a sudden event or, for example, the launch of a new model provided by the team sponsor as part of the development/testing/presentation; one of these is planned during the spring).
- VOYAGER backpack - more than 100 pcs
- EXPLORER suitcase - with wheels and pull-out handle - more than 100 pcs
- CRUISER 60-litre suitcase - 80 pcs
- PHASE organiser - 70 pcs
- every luggage is personalised for each racer and team member, i.e. marked with team tags or special printing
