Rapha Geminiani

ju5t1n

I was just reading Tom Simpson’s Wikipedia page and noticed that his first pro team was Rapha Geminiani. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Simpson)

Does anyone know who this Rapha were? ...it can’t be the same as the clothing firm that we all know and love, they’ve not been around that long.

Kléber

It was St Raphael tonic



Rapha nicked the image to a retro cycling, even going as far to use the first five letters of this team's name as well as using a similar lettering and design to the pro team:

rupertm1

This is from the design councils site

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/Case-St ... ies/Rapha/

The Rapha name comes from deep in the heritage of cycle sport. Rapha was a junior cycle racing team in the 1960s, designed to prepare young cyclists for a career in the professional team sponsored by the St. Raphael drink brand.

‘We broke all the rules when we chose the name,’ says Mottram. ‘When I was in branding I would advise my clients never to use a name that somebody else owns and never to use a name where you can’t get the dot com web address. In the end, we did both. We had to buy the brand name, but it works so well visually and with the brand values that nothing else would do.’

ju5t1n

I actually own one of the Prendas St Raphael replica jerseys ...but didn’t make the connection.

Garry H

There's also Raphael Geminiani the rider, who managed Anquetil and the St Raphael team, just to confuse matters even more. A great character.

Meds1962

Also a great rider, rode with Coppi and was lucky to avoid death at the same time from malaria.

Garry H

Meds1962 wrote:

Also a great rider, rode with Coppi and was lucky to avoid death at the same time from malaria.

Second in the tour if memory is right.

Echo et les Boniments

Geminiani was also Stephen Roche's directeur sportif at La Redoute (1985)

AndyRubio

rupertm1 wrote:

‘We broke all the rules when we chose the name,’ says Mottram.

ahahahahahahaaaahahahaaaa

What, all of them???

It's like reading an interview with GG Allin.