Who Are We
DAVID MILLAR
DOB: 04/01/77
NATIONALITY: Scottish
HOME: Girona, Spain
I've written so much about myself (my wife says it's my favourite subject, jokingly I hope, although sometimes I think she may be serious) that I'm going to keep this to bare essentials.
I became a professional racing cyclist when I was 19. I'm the only British rider to have worn all of the leaders’ jerseys at the Tour de France, been wearer of leaders’ jerseys in all Grand Tours, stage winner in all Grand Tours, and British National Champion in Road Race, Individual Time Trial and Individual Pursuit. Beyond my professional teams I've captained national teams at World, Commonwealth, and Olympic championships.
In addition to my 18 years of professional cycling, I've written two books: ‘Racing Through the Dark’ and ‘The Racer’ (about me), and worked on films with Stephen Frears, ‘The Program’ and Finlay Pretsell, ‘Time Trial’ (about me, I think my wife has point...).
Since retiring in 2014, I've become a commentator for British TV and coach for the GB cycling team. I am the co-creator of the brand CHPT3 (about my third chapter in life, ah shit, my wife really is right), and am an ambassador for Maserati, Jumeirah, and Sub Zero Wolf. Most importantly, I live with my wife and three small children in Girona, Spain, where I like to garden.
For full bio please go to http://manualforspeed.com/fan-club/fan-club-david-millar/
STEVE MILLS
DOB: 30/04/81
NATIONALITY: British
HOME: New Forest, England
If CHPT3 was a race team, then Steve would be a domestique, or perhaps mechanic. When deciding to take up his rightful role within SG3, then more than likely he’d assume DS, or whatever equally important role that could be requisitioned within a car for the duration of the group bike ride.
Steve’s renowned cycling pedigree has been honed over many years in the New Forest (pancake flat, not renowned), the vast majority of his cycling battles being fought on behalf of his allies from behind a desk.
After graduating with a Business IT degree (and a bit of travelling and saissonaire work, of course) Steve joined one of the top digital agencies just as they had made a huge breakthrough in mastering the ability to embed 30-second videos directly into an email. The technology was quickly adopted by many high-profile clients (Sony, Universal, Electronic Arts etc), yet, strangely, it is the work for Playboy that sticks in the mind. It was the bantering of this work with a mate that ran a bike shop while on a snowboard trip to Mirabel that led to a change of work.
Steve moved to Portsmouth, where he was integral in developing a domestic £10m cycling ecommerce business into the hundreds-of-million turnover, global ecommerce behemoth, that is Wiggle.com. After collecting numerous awards and accolades, and eight years of grind, Steve left Wiggle, and moved back to Southampton to team up with fellow SG3 member Paul (or as he likes to call himself, Maverick), and set about transforming ecommerce in a couple of extremely glamorous sectors: Ecommerce Fulfilment and Net Curtains.
He co-founded Green Snow Online Fulfilment, who run the ecommerce for various cycling businesses including Global Cycling Network, Rouleur and of course CHPT3.
Founding the world’s largest online net curtain shop in his spare time, goes to show it’s not all about the obvious product or sector when growing an ecommerce business, it’s doing the right things very well and always focusing on the customer. Sentiments bang on with all our philosophies.
A typical day for Steve would be to have breakfast as a family (usually the most stressful, most chaotic part of the day), do some work, ride his bike, have dinner with the family (more chaos) and do some more work before getting some rest. Rest is perhaps to calming a word, others may perhaps call it a form of sleep deprived torture, usually ending with a 5am double barrel assault to play Hot Wheels, Dinosaurs or Dino-Hotwheels as soon as the sun is almost thinking about coming up.
PAUL BOLWELL
DOB: 01/03/1977
NATIONALITY: British
HOME: New Forest, England
A man of many words, an opinion on everything, and, more often than not, outspoken.
He is known for not only saying, in one form or another, ‘Screw the marketing bollocks, what does the customer actually think?’ but also believing and practicing it. In football terms (he’s a proper soccer aficionado) his early life would have seen him labeled as a journeyman.
Aged 18 he was living in the Hamptons, USA, working as a life-guard and occasionally playing tennis with his idol, Henry ‘The Fonz’ Winkler, while in the winters he would tear off to the French Alps to go snowboarding. After a few years repeating this not so bad scenario he came to the realisation he’d be better off trying to do ‘normal’.
Back to the UK he went, where nearly immediately he secured a job working for a cycling clothing brand, the last job he had before becoming the third founder of Wiggle.com. Unknowingly at the time this would mean the Fonz playing Hamptons lifeguard would be but a footnote in the eventual life story.
Little did he envisage when joining in 2001, when the business was very much in its infancy, that ten years later it would be fought over by bankers and their funds for enough money to allow him to step away and rekindle his love for lifeguarding and tennis with the Fonz (not really). The years he’d spent working and travelling and contributing to the creation of a new form of consumerism, for better and worse, had left him no longer knowing what a work/lifestyle balance even was.
Wiggle changed the marketplace, and Paul was a key player in that inevitable change. Yet what he’s more proud of is having his initial, B, on the tail of tens of thousands of lycra clad cyclists. It was his creation of ‘DHB’ clothing (the D & H representing the two other Wiggle founders) that proved his deep belief that you have to think of the end user first and worry about the ‘bollocks’ later - product always first.
Life after Wiggle entailed more travelling for a couple of years, then back into the business with Steve his lifelong wingman. Like in Paul’s favourite film, Top Gun, Steve is very much the ‘Goose’ to Paul’s slightly looser, ‘Maverick’ style. The pair are actively involved with businesses where Paul has invested, including the Play Sports Network (which includes Global Cycling Network & Global Mountain Biking Network), Rouleur (Publications, Events & Retail) and his secret world of Net Curtains…
Beyond the Top Gun world of Maverick and Goose, Paul enjoys spending his time speeding round the world’s greatest race tracks on four wheels. He has ridden the west coast of the states on two wheels (motorized), and enjoys mixing it up on his KTM (off road) at home in the South of England, while all the time riding his two wheeled bikes (human powered). His principle focus currently is preparing for an MTB adventure with friends in Nepal, October 2017. He is so scared about it that he’s actually training and, incredibly, dieting.
For Paul there is a natural synergy to CHPT3, this being the third chapter of his life, easy years, crazy years, and now, this is time for the enjoyable years.