Rapha chairman invests €10 million into Classified brand

The CEO of private equity firm Active Partners has reportedly invested €10 million of the company's fund into the fast-growing Belgian brand, Classified Cycling, whose Powershift rear hub technology has the potential to disrupt the groupset market in the coming years. The firm led a recent round of funding that closed late in 2022, alongside existing investor Bridford Group. 

According to British news outlet The Times, the London-based CEO of the firm, Nick Evans, is a keen cyclist who has already made significant sums within the cycling industry.

In 2006, he personally invested in Rapha when the company had a headcount of just five people, immediately becoming chairman of the brand. He has remained in the position alongside other commitments to this day, as well as being a company director, despite the company being sold for £200 million to the Walmart heirs in 2017. 

He has also reportedly made "eight to ten times" his investment in Evans Cycles (no relation) between 2008 and 2015 alongside his Active Partners co-founders, former Goldman Sachs chief economist Gavyn Davies and accountant Spencer Skinner.

With the firm's investment, Evans joins a variety of high-profile backers from within cycling, including Belgian cycling legends Tom Boonen and Philippe Gilbert, former World- and Olympic champion Anna van der Breggen, as well as German sprint sensations Andre Greipel and Marcel Kittel. 

Classified was founded in 2019 by Mathias Plouvier and Roell van Druten, and is based out of Antwerp, Belgium. The brand's Powershift hub provides a two-speed internal gear system, which is actuated wirelessly via existing Shimano Di2 shifters or a separate remote. 

Its gears work on a 1 to 1 ratio for the primary gear, and a 1 to 0.7 ratio for the second. This replicates the functionality of a two-speed chainset, allowing the rider to take advantage of the benefits of running a single chainring – primarily improved chain retention and aerodynamics – without foregoing the additional gearing. It can be shifted between the two gears under a load of up to 1000 watts, with Classified claiming the shift takes just 150 milliseconds to complete. 

Such is its promise that seven different wheel brands have already signed a deal to offer the Classified hub built into their wheels, while Cyclingnews understands at least a further two brands are expected to be announced soon. 

The technology has been given the approval of the UCI, and it has already caught the attention of pro teams. Cyclingnews spotted the tech in use in the pro peloton, underneath Team Uno X's Anthon Charmig at the 2022 Tour de Hongrie.

It is currently only available for road or gravel bikes, but Classified has outlined plans to use the latest round of investment, which valued the company at between €40 to €50 million, to develop its technology into mountain biking and urban use. 

With electric bikes having seen a stratospheric rise over the past decade, there is certainly scope for growth, and with layoffs affecting all corners of the cycling industry, to see a brand being backed to succeed paints a promising picture of the future. 

Where does Classified go from here?

I have more than once described Classified as a 'front derailleur killer' in previous articles. This is because the tech allows riders to remove the front derailleur – and with it, the double front chainset – and replace it all with a simple single-chainring system. This means the rider can keep their total number of gears, with similar ratios as before, but without the risk of the chain coming off the chainset between shifts. Classified says the system is at-most equivalent in weight, meaning there's a possible weight saving to find, and the removal of components usually means it's more aerodynamic too, which will attract racers. It also means riders can shift instantly, under full power if needed, and perhaps more usefully when not pedalling at all.

Does that mean the front derailleur will actually be killed off altogether? No, I don't think so. A Classified-equipped wheelset currently costs around £1000 more than an equivalent wheelset without it, so it's a costly premium to add to your next new bike, and as such will likely only attract those looking at the very premium end of the range. Perhaps costs will come down as demand and production ramps up, but it's never going to be cheap enough to replace the front derailleur at the budget end of the spectrum. 

I can envisage a world in which the big groupset brands strike a deal with the brand. All of Sram, Shimano and Campagnolo manufacture wheels (Sram through its subsidiary Zipp) and it would be great to see Classified worked into that purchase process, especially as it would save consumers money and effort versus buying a full groupset and then selling off the unnecessary parts once they've swapped in the Powershift system. 

I see Classified's biggest market as being in the gravel scene, especially in gravel racing. Here, the front derailleur is almost non-existent anyway, replaced by wide-ratio cassettes from mountain biking. These cassettes are great for the ratio they offer, but offer bigger jumps between gears that can make it hard to find a suitable cadence over longer distances. For this reason some riders prefer '2x' gravel setups, but are then forced to risk dropped chains. The Classified system can offer the best of both worlds in this regard. 

Classified has also telegraphed its intentions to step into the urban and mountain biking space. I can immediately see promise in mountain biking, especially long-distance events, for the same reasons outlined above. The urban space is one I'll be keeping a close eye on; I feel it needs to be cheaper in order to be adopted in this sector, and if Classified can bring down the price, then I think its potential is huge.  Follow Josh on Twitter