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Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: Ten more years of Jittery Joe’s
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When the Athens, Georgia-based Jittery Joe’s pro cycling team (www.thebeanteam.com) first announced its intention to fund itself through the sales of coffee four years ago, perhaps no one would have believed one of its riders would topple Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong on one of the steepest climbs of the hardest stage race in the U.S.
Even fewer would have thought that one of the team’s youngest riders would be recruited to ride for Armstrong’s team.
But, as Colombian Cesar Grajales proved in 2003 on the Dodge Tour de Georgia’s tough Brasstown Bald Mountain — and Aussie Trent Lowe confirmed with his best young rider award at this year’s Dodge Tour de Georgia — sometimes the underdog gets a piece of the pie.
Jittery Joe’s team manager Micah Rice can go ahead and add a hot cup of steaming Jittery Joe’s Morning Ride coffee next to that piece of pie and slap some whipped cream on top of both. Rice and the rest of the Jittery Joe’s team staff are celebrating the recent signing of a new sponsorship deal that will see the team continue through the year 2015. It’s an unprecedented commitment in the world of domestic cycling, and it can only mean continued growth for the popular orange-and-white squad that rolls through domestic race caravans with a convertible Mini Cooper.
“As far as I know, this is the first time any sponsor has signed a ten-year contract with a pro cycling team,” said Rice. “What an amazing commitment to our sport. We are excited to know that we will be around for a long time. I believe Saturn and Shaklee were each around for 13 years, and we’ve been around for four years, plus another ten, so we should be the longest-running pro team in U.S. history.”
The sponsorship comes on the heels of federal approval for the Jittery Joe’s coffee company’s to open franchises throughout the southeast, including Rome, Georgia, Huntsville, Alabama, and Columbia, South Carolina. Farther-reaching expansion across the country is anticipated in the coming years. The new 10-year sponsorship deal continues giving 100 percent of the proceeds of Morning Ride coffee toward the team, as well as using the team as a national marketing vehicle for the coffee shop’s franchises.
“These franchises will all be putting money into a national marketing budget, and we are the national marketing,” Rice said. “The franchises will showcase a lot of team memorabilia. For every franchise that opens, team riders will be there. Maybe there will be a signed poster of Cesar Grajales on Brasstown Bald, or a team jersey. There will be a cycling community feel as part of the franchises. In fact, many of the people buying the franchises are cyclists.”
Jittery Joe’s Coffee Roasting Company has been selling micro-roasted coffee for over ten years. The company’s Morning Ride coffee is an organic, shade-grown Colombian coffee and is sold in nearly 700 bike shops nationwide, with all proceeds going straight to the Jittery Joe’s cycling team. The connection between cyclists and coffee goes straight to the core of the team’s history, explained Jittery Joe’s president Keith Kortemeier.
“The first coffee shop I had, there was a bike shop across the street and I learned quickly that cyclists loved coffee,” Kortemeier said. “I always knew I wanted to connect the two. I started talking about it with Micah. He was looking for a title sponsor. We just had two coffee shops, too small to do any marketing like that, but I immediately honed in on the concept of the high-school marching band selling candy bars to get to Europe. Clearly the team had a strong connection with bike shops across the country. We kept scratching around at it, and we found a system that works. It’s amazing — we’re like the grand experiment. It feels like the punk rock band selling CDs out of the back of the van. The team has definitely sold coffee out of the back of their cars.”
And although the team has seen both Grajales and Lowe move on — Grajales to Navigators Insurance last year, and Lowe to Discovery Channel starting next season — Rice insists that’s part of the process.
“It’s cool to know someone can go from Jittery Joe’s straight to Discovery Channel. That’s a feather in our cap,” Rice said. “It’s our job to be a development team, to find guys like Cesar Grajales or Trent Lowe and bring them to the limelight. Sometimes when I sign someone I tell them, ‘I see potential in you, and if everything works out properly I know I’m not going to be able to afford you next year.’”
That both Lowe and Grajales made names for themselves at the Tour de Georgia has worked out nicely for the Georgia-based company. “The Tour de Georgia has been huge for the team,” Kortemeier said. “To have that platform, to show the talents that are on the team. Being the only team out of the southeast put a much bigger spotlight on us, and the guys on team seized that opportunity. The exposure on our side has been immense. It’s hard for a coffee shop to get on CNN, but we’ve been on CNN four or five times in the past two years.”
LOOKING FORWARD
For the 2006 season, Rice knows he’ll have to work to get the same kind of publicity at his home-state event. Not only is Lowe gone, but the team’s biggest-name rider this past year, Tim Johnson, has reportedly signed a two-year deal with Health Net-Maxxis for 2006-07.
“We completely understand Tim’s situation,” Rice said. “Health Net offered him a good two-year deal, and it’s an opportunity to be a part of a team he feels comfortable with. Tim raced hard for us and was an amazing team captain, but I think he will be much more comfortable as an attacking rider, a support rider. I don’t think he was quite as comfortable in the GC position we had him in. At races like Altoona or Tour de Beauce, our GC guy was always attacking off the front. For next year he was offered a spot to do what he is best at. I know he agonized over that decision, but we all decided he needed to what was best for him.”
Rice said he has signed 26-year-old Phil Wong of Fiordifrutta, twice the second-place finisher at the Mount Washington Hill Climb, and expects to receive a signed contract from sprinter/team captain Jeff Hopkins shortly. With other contract offers out on the table, Rice is also looking over a stack of race resumes.
“I like to bring in new kids who are hungry to race,” Rice said. “Kids that would be there even if they had to sleep in the back of the van. That’s the kind of attitude that people on our team. You should see the pile of resumes I get. I think the Jittery Joe’s team is known as being a little bit more approachable. A strong regional Cat. 1 rider is more likely to send a resume to us than Health Net or Navigators. He’s probably going to think, ‘Maybe this would be a better situation for me.’ We’ve reached the point we’re kind of a benchmark for up-and-coming riders. We try to find that talent and provide any opportunity we can. Some of these guys know if they were to sign with a team like Health Net they might not get to go to the Tour de Georgia or Philly Week. At Jittery Joe’s they know they’re going to get the opportunities, the rides. They’re not going to be shut out from that.”
Looking forward, the team has the comfort of telling riders and potential bike-industry sponsors that they will be a presence at national calendar events for the foreseeable future. It’s a sizeable commitment, Kortemeier admits, but it falls in the unconventional method of everything that has surrounded the team since day one.
“We wanted to make a statement that we’re in this for the long haul,” Kortemeier said. “It gives the team a strong foundation, that its got something and we’re solid. None of the path we’ve taken to make this team happen has been traditional by any means. We wanted to keep rolling with that excitement and that energy. Ultimately we made the 10-year commitment because it was possible.”
Asked his highlight of the past four years, Kortemeier couldn’t nail down just one moment. “Every win is incredible,” he said. “Any of those moments where somebody’s life was changed because of an opportunity they seized. I look at it as empowerment. It’s a symbiotic relationship — the team empowers us, brings us into cycling communities, and we empower the riders to show people how amazing they are, to do something amazing under a national spotlight. Any time I can look at it and think, ‘We helped out here, we were a productive part of cycling,’ is a highlight for me.”
Kortemeier added that although 10 years is a long enough time to try to cultivate a ProTour-level team, it probably isn’t in the crystal ball for Jittery Joe’s. “Our hope is to become not only the southeast-homegrown team but also a national-level team,” he said. “We want to be known across the United States. Of course I would love to be able to send these guys to Europe, but I think our focus is going to stay domestic.”
As he did this year, Rice will continue to serve as general manager and step back from team-directing duties. “This year I had Ken Mills as my director and that worked out well,” Rice said. “I want to concentrate on marketing and sponsorship of the team, the whole feel of the team. We’re not the biggest team or the strongest, but we do have a feel that I don’t think anyone else has. We’re doing this because we love to do it. We’re the underdog team. We’ve got the Minis in the caravan. Instead of a team launch where everyone is on a stage, we had a party with two kegs of beer at the coffee-roasting company. We definitely feel a connection with our fans. They support us in a big way. We sold a lot of Jittery Joe’s-Kalahari Pro Cycling t-shirts this year. People know we are supported off the sales of these items.”
And for those headed to Interbike next week, look for Rice, Kortemeier and the team’s Mini Cooper at the Louis Garneau booth, with Kortemeier slinging Jittery Joe’s espresso himself.
“It’s great to have a really involved bunch of sponsors,” Rice said. “How cool is that to have Keith, the owner of a company on the verge of national franchising, pouring espressos for everyone?”
