“My story in the bicycle industry started in 1996 when I first moved to Taiwan, and I worked for the first bicycle carbon fibre bicycle manufacturer in Taiwan, which pretty much made it the first actual mass production facility in the world.”
Today, Rob Gitelis is the CEO of Factor Bikes, the premium bike brand behind Israel-Premier Tech, Human Powered Health, Team Amani, a handful of gravel privateers, and more recently, Aus Cycling.
He took over the company in 2016 and has grown it to be one of the best-known in the industry with a WorldTour presence, Tour de France podiums and numerous grand tour stage wins.
But before that, his storied career saw him drive forward the development of the Taiwanese carbon fibre bicycle manufacturing industry, own one of the handful of factories supplying, in his words, “60% of all carbon fibre frames,” and manufacture products for Pinarello, 3T, Cervélo, Santa Cruz, Rocky Mountain, Cinelli and many many more.
In this interview, we spoke about Rob Gitelis the person, as well as the business leader. I learned what motivated him to take the plunge with Factor, and what keeps that motivation going day by day. We discussed his ‘do things for the right reason’ approach, including the brand’s sponsorships, his loyalty to his employees, and how that loyalty was repaid during his struggles with mental health.
We spoke about the friends he’d made along the way, from Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish to Sir Paul Smith and Rapha founder Simon Mottram.
He outlined the pandemic from a Taiwanese factory’s perspective, overviewed the current struggles facing the industry, and even explained how he feels about sponsoring Israel-Premier Tech amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
The beginning
“I grew up in Miami. I was lucky in the sense that cycling in America wasn’t so popular when I was growing up, but Miami was one of the hotbeds.”
“My next-door neighbour growing up was Chris Carmichael, who started Carmichael Training Systems and was one of those first Americans to ride the Tour de France [with Team 7-Eleven in 1986]. I always had him to look up to he’s about five years or six years older than me, so I was always this little kid following him around.”
“The bicycle was always such an important part of my life, that freedom, how to get away from home, and it was kind of what saved me from a very violent childhood. It gave me a great opportunity to expand my horizons to see the world.”
Gitelis entered his first…
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