the eventual winner of Milan Sanremo.
(Photo by TDWSport.com)
Showers Pass rain jackets are so commonly seen in Portland’s bikeways, they’re the closest thing you can get to an official uniform. But seeing them used in the elite professional ranks isn’t common at all. Or at least it wasn’t until yesterday.
The Portland-based company that specializes in wet-weather bicycling apparel, scored a PR coup when jackets emblazoned with their logo and their trademark goldenrod color appeared on the winning team at Sunday’s Milan-Sanremo race.
The Milan-Sanremo is a major “spring classic” and it’s one of the biggest races on the European professional cycling circuit. Showers Pass is the official supplier to Team Katusha. According to company marketing director Stephanie Leikas-Homolya, they sent the team several of their Elite Pro rain jackets a few weeks ago. Like much of the company’s rain jacket business, it’s somewhat at the whim of the weather. “This is the first race where the weather warranted the jackets,” Leikas-Homolya shared with us this morning.
When conditions turned foul and wet in Sanremo on Sunday Team Katusha reached for their Showers Pass jackets. That alone wouldn’t have guaranteed the sponsorship exposure. It just so happened that the day’s fastest rider — Alexander Kristoff — wore his while riding in the peloton. Kristoff was then photographed by an official even photographer whose images appeared in the race gallery on VeloNews.com, a very popular American-based website.
The photo caption on VeloNews.com read, “Alexander Kristoff was wearing everything in the closet.”
And Showers Pass isn’t missing the opportunity to amplify this PR moment. They’ve plastered their home page with photos of Kristoff in action and a message of congrats to Team Katusha. A press release is also likely from the company later this morning.
While Katusha and Kristoff had a great race at Sanremo, congrats is also due to Showers Pass. Nice work! We hope to see more of your gear in the pro peloton in the future.