Evomo Clothing has been one of MtnBikeRiders.com’s favorite companies. Not only do they have some cool stuff to wear, but the Evomo guys are pretty cool themselves!
So I decided to do an E-nterview with Bryan Thombs, owner and Mack Daddy of Evomo. Read below and you’ll learn a great deal about this great clothing company.
1.When did you start Evomo and why?
The idea for Evomo came about in 2004 when I realized as a mountain biker I found myself wearing a lot of “logo tees” (as I call them) for other sports and noticed there really wasn’t anyone out there creating shirts with more thought and better designs. Specifically there wasn’t anyone doing mountain bike themed casual wear. I especially wanted to create an image of mountain biking that is very unique in style with a high coolness factor. 2005 was the official kick off year where I went with the support of a few good friends to numerous mountain bike events. It was and definitely still is a really grass roots style push to get the clothing out there and really talk to mountain bikers and get their thoughts.
In 2004, I was developing the look for the unnamed brand and designing the first series of shirts. At the time it really didn’t matter if I had a company name because I knew that the name wouldn’t be the focus of my designs. All the other clothing companies under the sun had that taken care of for me, ie: logo t-shirts. Now in its 3rd year, the name is quite integral. Evomo is becoming a brand and people want to have clothing with the name so being conscious of that we have begun to integrate the name more prominently into all the designs we do but still coming up with clever and cool looks.
2.What does Evomo mean?
I spent a good six months researching the perfect name for the company and narrowed it down to about three. I had many requirements that the name had to meet and as it turns out Evomo is perfect! Evomo ends up being a Latin word. It means “to vomit forth”.
3. Who makes up the Evomo Race Team?
The race team is managed by Rob Blue who also enjoys racing cross country and enduro events. Without his help we wouldn’t have a team. The core cross country team is comprised of Rob Blue, Brandon Bitorff, Mikel Aucutt, Matthew Connors (AZ), Walker Thompson (CO), Josh Cook (WV). We have an additional down hill team that includes some reall star riders: Brett Miller, Michael Takahashi, Shea Jordan and Jami Pelligrino all from California. As much as we love the racing aspect of mountain biking, we probably love the festival and weekend ride vibe even more.
Brandon Bitorff
4. Who comes up with all the great ideas for the clothing you guys pump out?
Well I pretty much come up with all the designs, ideas and looks. I have been starting to work with outside designers to bring a few new things in which is cool. Everything about Evomo is driven by my creativity and desire to make a new clothing brand from scratch. Its a huge challenge and I almost never stop thinking about a cool design, or a new fabric to try and even techniques like embroidery/appliqué combination screen prints. I am always bouncing ideas of my buddies and they even contribute clever ideas too. The Hurl shirt has the guy puking his guts out with his bike thrown down was a very risky shirt my friends and family told me. Thats exactly what I wanted! So far its been one of the most popular designs. The Blood Donor was my first design and still one of my favorites. Its a solid winner too.
5. Beer or wine?
I would probably say beer, although I am more of a water kind of guy these days. I guess its cause if I drink then the next morning I wont be able to go on that ride. Rides are more important than beer – although some would argue that. (Vodka and cranberry can be a tasty treat!)
6. Do you ride anything else other than a mountain bike? Road, fixed etc?
Nope. Just mountain bikes… hard tail or full suspension works for me. I know a lot of the guys who race love the road so they can get some serious miles in. Not here in LA. Forget it. I would rather take my chances with a rattlesnake or mountain lion than a soccer mom in her 2 ton SUV talking on the phone.
Brett Miller
7. What’s the best way for riders to get sponsored by Evomo?
These days we are hooked up with Sponsorhouse.com. They have an awesome website set up to manage sponsorships and so far its been quite nice. I would compare it to a myspace like world but for action sports only. Each athlete makes a profile and fills in photos and information that will help us learn about what kind of sponsorship deal we can offer them. You can check out our profile here: http://www.sponsorhouse.com/members/evomo
8. What does the sponsorship include?
It depends on many factors. If your profile is well put together with lots of content then thats going to get you a better deal. We even have a Sponsorship Tips area on our profile, but I dont think anyone reads it. If they did, then they would wait to apply with Evomo until they had some stuff to show us. By stuff, I mean photos of you riding, a paragraph about yourself, what like to do for fun, what races and results do you have. Base sponsorship includes a discount on Evomo products which increases as you show how well you are helping to spread the word about our brand. In fact we had one kid who went to the Chile Challenge in Angel Fire, NM and wore his Evomo DH Jersey in the mountain cross race and won 1st! We were so excited to see that he took it upon himself to travel from California and represent Evomo on the mountain. We upgraded his deal immediately. I think we are pretty cool that way. The core factory teams get much more, bigger deals, free stuff – but its a lot harder to get on the core factory team for Evomo.
Jami Pellegrino
9. Do you create custom shirts if people wanted their own logo?
It really depends on who is asking. We have done a couple and it ended up being a lot more work than it needed to be. I would rather focus on the Evomo brand stuff.
10. What’s in plan for Evomo Clothing in 2008? More designs? Any new clothing pieces like shorts, socks and etc?
2008 Plans. Well. Believe it or not we do have stuff in mind for next year. A couple things are hush hush but some of the not so hush hush items include new hoodies. The current hoodie called “Sonic” was a big hit but I was not 100% pleased with the manufacturing process on those. They are great but not awesome! So now we have a new light weight hoodie in progress and probably will have a winter hoodie too. New designs are in the works for the tees – always! More elaborate printing methods of which we recently experimented with water based inks and aging processes to create the “Flight” tee. I dig doing stuff thats more complex and really creative. I think the fans and customer really dig it to… cause they have something that very few people are wearing and it looks cool – its beyond your standard graphic tee. We have had a lot of requests to make shorts so its something on the long term horizion I am looking into.
Evomo Rider Shea Jordan at Sea Otter Classic 2007
11. Which is your favorite mountain biking blog (psst, you’re supposed to say MtnBikeRiders.com!)
Of couse mtnbikeriders.com! Actually, there are a handful I visit everyday for some good reading: sicklines.com, yourmtb.com, mtbr.com, teamquickrelease.blogspot.com, jeffkerkove.blogspot.com, ridewithnickmartin.com and a few others.
We’d like to thank Bryan Thombs of Evomo Clothing for taking the time out of his busy day to answer our questions. To learn why Evomo is BOSS and why they kick ass, check out their blog!
To up your coolness level, then you MUST wear Evomo clothing. All of us at MtnBikeRiders.com do and that’s why we’re cool…..it’s the shirts man!
Moe wearing his favorite shirt.
GET YOUR EVOMO CLOTHING HERE. Cuz if ya don’t, then your not a REAL mountain biker…oooh that’s right I said it!
