Shifting Gears: The Designer

“Wouldn’t it be fun if we had a couple fun patterns to choose from,” Ashley Rankin exclaimed exasperatedly to her riding partners while out on a mountain bike ride in Crested Butte, Colorado. She was referring to her bike shorts, which could best be described as trash bags. If you went browsing in a bike shop for women’s gear you’d likely find two things: black shorts or nothing at all. So frustrated by the poor selection from both online and in person, Rankin eventually bought a pair of boardshorts instead. They weren’t mountain biking specific, but they did the job. Plus, at least with boardshorts there were other colors to choose from.

As she pedaled she vocalized her frustrations regarding the situation with her two close friends. Turns out she wasn’t alone in her sentiments, and they quickly chimed in. They both echoed her desire for more color choice. One wished for the use of stretchier fabric for a better fit while the other prioritized comfort over aesthetics.

"Those yellow and white shorts aren't even mountain bike shorts, they're boardshorts—I refused to wear black anymore!" Rankin explained.

Rankin listened intently. It wasn’t meant to be anything more than a conversation, but their wishlist was something she couldn’t shake from her thoughts. Even when she went to sleep, little mountain biking shorts were bouncing around in her head. With a formal background in apparel design, it would be a piece of cake to quickly whip up a pair of stylish shorts for herself and her friends, but that wasn’t what kept her up at night. It was the notion that maybe other women desired something similar. Thinking much bigger, those shorts suddenly became multiple pairs of shorts and even a clothing line.

The whole concept was a risk. It was positively insane, but it was also an opportunity.

Women’s apparel was being ignored and unaddressed by the industry, and that’s all that mattered to Rankin. She grabbed her sketchbook and began formulating ideas. Ignoring the fact that she knew absolutely nothing about the outdoor industry or how to launch a clothing brand, she instead focused intently on designing a pair of shorts. In time she’d not only create these shorts but a full-fledged and thriving women’s outdoor apparel brand called Shredly.

A Fashion Designer at Heart:

Prior to Shredly, Rankin was not a racer or affiliated with the bike industry in any capacity.

Growing up, she dreamt of creating high-end evening and couture clothing.

In college, she set her sights on this goal, and her determination lead the way. She ended up landing an internship in Florence, Italy and was becoming increasingly connected within the high fashion scene. She loved both Europe and Florence, but steadily felt like something was missing. This was everything she thought she wanted, so why wasn’t she content?

Rankin’s childhood was spent in Aspen, Colorado. She lived and breathed the outdoors. An avid skier and mountain biker her whole life, her lifestyle was now confined to that of a urban landscape. She felt disconnected. Her uncertainty only heightened on a trip to clear her head in Switzerland. The mountains, the fresh air, and green grass were all things she realized that she was craving “I was on top of this mountain, and I felt like I was home,” she explains. It was her “aha” moment. She could see for miles and her lungs swelled with the crisp cool air. Being back in the mountains, felt like being home.

Rankin brought her fashion-forward thinking to women's apparel, a niche that had been notoriously underserved. 

When her internship ended, she returned to Colorado with a pit in her stomach. Instead of excitement towards the next chapter in her life, the final semester of college filled her with dread. She cried at her graduation; by walking away from high-end couture she had lost her compass. Stubbornly she refused to move back home. Recalling that moment of clarity from Switzerland, she packed her belongings and moved to Crested Butte, Colorado.

There was one caveat: there were no jobs hiring at the time. “I just ended up back in the [Aspen] valley I grew up in and I took a job in Marketing because that’s what was available and it paid the bills,” she explains in hindsight.

While she wasn’t fervently passionate about real estate marketing, this job provided the necessary foundation for Shredly. It gave her a disposable income to take risks.

The idea to create women’s mountain bike shorts came at a point of restlessness in her current role. She had been working in marketing for the past five years, and grew weary of being constrained to a desk. “Powder days didn’t fall on the weekend only and I found myself not being able to ride as much I wanted after work,” she explains. “I came to this reckoning that this wasn’t how I’d hope the spend the rest of my life—and I wasn’t passionate about marketing either.” Instead, freedom, creativity, and flexibility were the things she yearned for, and in many respects, starting Shredly was less about being an entrepreneur and more about creating the kind of lifestyle that she craved.

Step by Step to Shredly:

“What about...Shredly: for chicks who shred?” her friend suggested when Rankin toyed with what to call the new brand. That was it. Brand Identity? Check. Next on the agenda: get fabric, make patterns, create samples, and hustle a lot. Luckily she had an idea of how to craft a brand from her exposure to the fashion industry in college, but when it came to actual connections to the outdoor industry she had none. “Knowing what I know now I would never do it again,” she reflects. “Had I known everything that’s involved with [a small business] I think I would have been too scared to actually try to tackle it.” Her naivete served as a blessing because she was young, optimistic, and a dreamer. All in all, qualities that helped her mitigate the constant challenges of running a small business.

Getting Shredly going was no simple task. Initially, it was something she had to balance while maintaining a full-time job. Taking it one step at a time, she spent eight months sourcing fabric and eventually connected with a pattern maker. After countless revisions, the next step would be far her biggest challenge: financing. The first production run would require pulling together a hefty sum of cash. “You know those annoying mailers you get in the mail that advertise loans with absurd percentage rates? While most people would throw those in the trash I was using everything I could get,” she explains. At this point, after pooling together her savings, some money from her dad, and a combination of loans she still didn’t have quite enough. That was until she discovered Kickstarter. 

We even kitted our TGR Testers with Shredly shorts—they loved them. Tim Koerber Photo.

At the time, the crowdfunding website was still in its infancy, and crafting an appealing campaign wouldn’t be easy. She had no trendy promotional material because the product wasn’t ready yet. Her samples eventually arrived in the middle of December, the snow made it impossible to get actual shots of it in use. Instead, they ended pulling together a collection of stills in a studio. “Looking back it definitely proved how grassroots this brand was, but I think that’s why so many people were willing to support it,” she says. In 2011, there weren’t many options for women to choose from. The economy, wrecked by the 2008 recession, had also strained the bandwidth of many outdoor brands. Instead of growing, many were forced to cut back, for instance, around this time Sombrio had eliminated one year of women’s production. Meanwhile, here came Shredly, a breath of fresh air.

In January, when everyone was skiing, she launched her Kickstarter campaign.

It was all or nothing funding with the final goal of $25,000. For 30 days she nervously sat and watched the ticker counter. She turned to social media, hosted fashion shows at the local hotels, traveled to bike shops to show off the product, and did anything else she could to get the word out.

On the last day of the campaign, it sat at $19,000. Crestfallen in a cafe, Rankin gazed at the remaining $6000 left to go. They weren’t going to make it, she mused. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the donations started to flow in. It began as a steady trickle and exponentially gained momentum. Those final donations came from high school classmates, old friends she hadn’t talked to in forever, and many gracious strangers. While Kickstarter launched Shredly’s first production line and helped grow the brand into what it is today, it hasn’t gotten any easier. “When you own a small business you’re also a professional problem solver,” Rankin explains and despite the many hiccups that have happened along the way, she thinks she’s found her balance.

The Industry is changing:

“I remember the first time I was kitted out in my Shredlys,” Lisa Slagle, the owner of Wheelie Creative, remembers with a chuckle. She was biking on one her favorite local trails in Whitefish, Montana and bumped into an old friend. He didn’t recognize her. She gave him a hard time to which he responded, “What—I didn’t recognize you because you looked cute,” he jested. At this time, there were no stylish options for female mountain bikers. Slagle first discovered the brand while living in Crested Butte, where the brand had a large grassroots presence. Browsing through the racks in a bike shop, she was stunned by a pair of brightly colored floral shorts. In a world of black poorly-fitted mountain bike shorts, Shredly charged in with bold prints ranging from electric poppies to neon dinosaurs. It was absolutely polarizing, which would be the spark needed to create a bigger change in the industry. “Ashley was the change maker by bringing pattern and style into mountain biking—particularly being mindful of self-expression,” Slagle emphasizes. The brand’s bold colors and patterns are both their signature and their foundation.

Bright, bold, and colorful—that's the essence of Shredly.

“I vowed that I’m not going to do solid colors with these shorts,” Rankin explains. She wants women to get excited the minute they get dressed. It was a feeling she easily found when she put on her dirt biking clothing. That gear was bright, colorful, and bold. Best of all, when she was fully kitted out in it, she felt badass. Getting dressed was part of the experience, whereas, in mountain biking there wasn’t an equivalent. Slagle eventually would become more acquainted with Shredly and Rankin through creative collaboration with her creative agency. Slagle, who has worked with a large variety of outdoor brands, noticed something particularly unique about Shredly and Rankin. “She’s a very heartfelt genuine person and cares so much about the quality of her products,” Slagle explains. “To the point where I couldn’t run a business with that much detail—to the level that she brings, and I really admire that about her.”

Since first spotting the shorts in Colorado, Slagle found them in bike shops all over the country including her local shops in Whitefish, for example, at Great Northern Cycle & Ski. The shop is managed and owned by Stella Holt and her fiance, and Holt picked up Shredly because she wanted more women’s apparel options for her customers to choose from. She found the brand to be unique, not only for their distinctive patterns but for their diverse options when it comes to sizing. “One of the coolest things for me is the size ranges, and there are a lot of women who can’t find clothing that fits them—especially clothing that is fun and looks good,” Holt explains. That’s the beauty of Shredly.

Designed with the diversity of women’s bodies in mind, its sizes range from 00 to 18.

The running joke is that you can spot a pair of Shredlys from a mile of away. “What I never could have imagined is Shredly has become very cultish,” Rankin says jokingly. There’s a culture that has been built around the brand without her doing. She’s heard countless stories of women stopping mid-ride because they spot another rider in shorts. The patterns are so unmistakably distinct that you know you’re looking at a pair of Shredly shorts the second you see them.

Now there’s a community around it, not just with Shredly, but with women’s apparel in general. It’s no longer a culture of: you get what you get. Instead, there are actually options to choose from. That goes for Shredly too. Now they’ve grown to include more than mountain biking, they’ve got leggings, chamois, hats, jerseys, and hiking shorts too. In a sense, they’re redefining the idea of shredding. Rankin tells me about the time her production manager asked what it meant to shred. The manager wasn’t a mountain biker or skier, so Rankin explained that she could really “shred” anything. “So, you mean I could Shred my sewing machine,” her production manager asked and without any hesitation, Rankin responded, “Of course!”