Across the desert landscape of Moab, Utah, three women were cruising their mountain bikes over the dusty, red rock terrain, casually having a brainstorming session that would forever catalyze one of the riders: Ashley Rankin.
The truth was that Rankin and her two friends were completely uninspired with the current state of women’s mountain biking apparel–– the limited sizes, poor fit, discomfort, and characterless monochrome weren't cutting it. Unknown to Rankin at the time, this conversation would become the cornerstone of her career. In a few years, she would become CEO of SHREDLY, a successful company dedicated to addressing a major inclusivity gap in the outdoor recreation industry: stylish and diverse women’s biking apparel. In rapid time, she would be outfitting women of most shapes and sizes across the globe for their outdoor adventures.
To Shred or to Style
On a sunny August day in 2024, I had the pleasure of virtually meeting Rankin to ask her about SHREDLY and her inspiration for beginning a company from scratch. She was enthusiastic and energetic in recounting her company's origin story to me.
Rankin explained that she was raised in the mountains of Carbondale, Colorado, so outdoor recreation was not foreign to her. Her family was exceedingly active in all seasons, and so she had the support to engage in activities like skiing and mountain biking.
“I'm so fortunate that I did not grow up feeling like I was participating in sports that weren't for me,” Rankin said to me. “But I know that's not what a lot of people's experiences felt like.”
While Rankin pursued outdoor recreation, she also never stopped embracing her feminine side, enjoying painting her nails and dreaming of being a fashion designer.
“I wanted to move to the big city, live in an apartment building, and basically be Jennifer Aniston on Friends,” Rankin laughed when recounting her early career visions.
And her dreams were off to a strong beginning––she studied at Colorado State University, obtaining her degree in Apparel Design and Production in 2006. But with one semester left until graduation, she traveled to Florence, Italy for a summer internship where she finally experienced the city life that she envisioned for herself; however, this presented her with an unexpected crossroads. She desperately missed the mountains, and her internal conflict about remaining in the city for fashion design clashed with her yearning to return to nature. On a brief trip to Switzerland, her decision resolved.
“I was on top of this mountain, and I just felt like I was home,” she concluded. “This is where I belonged. So, after school, I didn't go towards the city designer life. I moved back to the mountains, and I went into marketing.”
But Rankin was never specifically interested in outdoor design, and it wasn’t until college that she began to enjoy biking on her own and with friends. Consequently, as her time on the saddle grew, so did her displeasure with women’s biking apparel.
This discontentment finally reached a turning point during that noteworthy trip to Moab.
While Rankin and her two friends were mountain biking, they discussed the necessary characteristics of the perfect bicycle shorts for women, and all three riders had different needs and perspectives. For Rankin, she desired fun patterns to satisfy her feminine style while still being able move effectively and efficiently on a mountain bike.
“I'd see a shower curtain or a pillow and wonder why we couldn’t have cute patterns like that!” she laughed.
Meanwhile, her friend was a professional rider, and she needed comfort and technical performance that included a wide waistband that didn’t cut off at the stomach. Finally, Rankin's other friend wished for a type of material that wasn’t loud or crunchy to the feel. Together, they developed three criteria for their pipe dream bicycle shorts:
Does it look good?
Does it feel good?
Does it fit good?
But these were just daydreams, and Rankin had no experience as an entrepreneur in the real world. Nonetheless, the seed had been planted.
SHREDLY is Born
In 2012, SHREDLY officially launched. It was an intimidating start for Rankin––she wasn’t trained as an entrepreneur, and she had never owned a brand or company. However, she had all the skills as a designer to make the dream a reality.
SHREDLY originated right after the economic depression, so funding for the new company had to start in untraditional ways. Rankin leaned towards Kickstarter to begin her campaign, and her Facebook and Twitter accounts were launched the same day. That year, Rankin convinced 17 bike shops to get on-board with featuring her apparel, as she told Femme Cyclist podcast.
“There was no following,” Rankin explained to me. “It was completely brand new to the world, but it was an incredible experience of the community rallying behind it.” Everyone who participated in the Kickstarter believed in SHREDLY, and it almost immediately proved successful, highlighting the demand for the product.
But Rankin was working a full-time job in marketing as a real estate agent in Aspen, so she couldn’t yet dedicate all her time to the new company. Fortunately, her job taught her about marketing premium products, and she slowly developed SHREDLY behind the scenes. It wasn’t until 2017, five years after SHREDLY’s launch, that she took the leap of faith to go full-time.
And SHREDLY took off.
“There were no For Women By Women specific mountain bike brands at the time,” Rankin explained. “So, it was something really new and fresh for the industry.”
In the first year, everything was sold out, and it was an effort to keep up with the demand. Rapidly, SHREDLY had a global outreach, particularly with a strong desire from people in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
“Everyone around the world got super excited if they saw someone else in SHREDLY,” Rankin observed. “Early on, we got this picture emailed to us from someone who was in New Zealand, and they were on top of this popular mountain. They spotted two other people in SHREDLY, and they were just as excited about it as they knew we would be, and they were each from different countries wearing the same shorts, which makes SHREDLY so cool.”
But it was predominately Rankin doing all the work at the beginning. She had her family’s support, and her sister’s attic was the initial warehouse. Eventually, SHREDLY outgrew this, and then it outgrew her mother’s attic. Finally, the company expanded enough that she hired her first employees and contractors to manage orders, customer service, and email marketing.
“I was nervous because I didn't have funding,” Rankin admitted. “It was all self-funded. I gave up my job and my apartment, and I wasn't paying myself…It was a scary transition, but it was the right thing to do.”
To this day, Rankin still wears a lot of hats for the company, performing business operations, design, and product management, but she is still grateful about taking a chance on her new company.
For Women By Women
SHREDLY’s uniqueness and success comes from the fact that the company works hard to authentically be a women’s brand, catering to women of many shapes and sizes. Comparatively, a lot of larger companies don’t sell a diversity of women’s sizes since lesser worn sizes are not as marketable. Because those sizes aren’t available, women can’t buy them, and this turns into a viscous cycle of products never going on the market. So, it takes a company, like SHREDLY, to make the leap of faith to offer new products for their customers.
“Historically, companies have not catered to all the sizes that women exist in,” Rankin remarked. “We have not mastered it 100% yet because there are still some people outside of the size range that we offer in. So, it's our job to really listen to that and analyze the demand and listen to our community requests and see where we can partner and grow on that.”
In just the 12 years that SHREDLY has existed, Rankin noticed a distinct change in the industry and community. More women were getting involved in mountain biking, and the demand had grown substantially. Back when she and her friends daydreamed in Moab, women’s mountain biking clinics didn’t exist. Now, there were entire festivals dedicated to all-women events, like Roam Fest in Colorado and the Rooted MTB Fest in New York.
“Girls are growing up with riding right now as part of their school programming, and it's just completely different than it was when we grew up,” Rankin stated. “So, it is so cool to see it changing, and I know there's still a lot of work in progress to be made, but it has improved leaps and bounds in just the last decade. So, I find it really inspiring to see what's going to happen in the next 10, 20, 30 years.”
Rankin emphasized the importance of not giving life to discussions about women not belonging in any outdoor space.
“Don't even mention that there are spaces that girls feel like they shouldn't be in because if someone hasn't experienced that as a young rider, that plants a seed that was never there for them,” Rankin urged. “I say this from a place of privilege because I grew up never feeling that way and never having anyone tell me girls shouldn't be in sports. Just block out the noise because if you're told that you're in a space that's not for you, you'll feel a different way about it.”
Shredding in the Future
According to Rankin, SHREDLY is still a small company with a small workforce, but she does have strategic growth and team goals that she hopes to accomplish. Now knowing that her company is successful and working, she can plan years out into the future.
“We want to offer the best apparel that we can for our space, and our space goes outside of mountain biking,“ Rankin said.
The team hopes that their inventory can be a one stop shop for other outdoor necessities since women who mountain bike should also be able to dismount and go for a hike as well. So, SHREDLY is working to fill the gap in those activity crossovers to grow their community base.
Importantly, Rankin also has a passion for sustainability and is consciously seeking environmentally-friendly options for her products. After all, 93% of SHREDLY products are made from recycled materials, and Rankin is still striving for 100%. Additionally, SHREDLY prioritizes upcycling and ethical manufacturing when sourcing fabrics from their manufacturers, and the team encourages repairs (offering warranties), sends fabric trimmings to help others in their DIY repair projects, and donates their older products to organizations in need.
Beyond clothing, Rankin and the SHREDLY team offer a variety of retreats and clinics of varying skill levels, which the company shares and updates on its Events page, further emphasizing how they foster community and growth for women in the mountain biking community.
“We're tackling being welcoming, authentic, and inclusive through creating a community where everybody is welcome,” Rankin concluded. “We want everybody to be excited and have the same experience that anyone else does when it comes to being excited to get dressed and ready to go. There's a lot of people tackling it from different angles, and it is hard work. I'm just so grateful that people are doing it in many ways. There's a greater good for everyone in it.”
All photos provided by Ashley Rankin and used with permission
Comments