Lee Stuart on the PATTA Cycling Team

For Lee Stuart, former brand director of Amsterdam-based streetwear & culture powerhouse PATTA, it’s all about family, community and diversity. You can hear it in the way he speaks and in the words he chooses, and you can feel his passion when talking about his core values. He is a highly inspirational person and – at the same time – couldn’t be more laid back and easy going. As one of the few black owned European streetwear businesses, PATTA has been one of the first to bring street culture not only to the streets of Amsterdam, but the world. We met Lee to talk to him about one of PATTA’s latest community endeavors, the PATTA Cycling Team, which they’ve started in March 2023.

Hey Lee, thank you very much for taking the time. For the people who don’t know you, could you introduce yourself and what you do?

Sure! Lee Stuart, 42 years old, based in Amsterdam, father of two and I have worked at PATTA for six years as the brand director. People always ask me what that means (laughs). It means: A little bit of everything. From the smallest to the biggest task, I’m usually the first one to talk about a project but also the last one. It can mean a lot of things.

Most of our readers will know PATTA for its undeniable power in street culture. But there’s more to PATTA than the brand side. There’s the Running Club for some years now and in March 2023 PATTA started the PATTA Cycling Team. How did that idea come about?

Well, I’m 42, you know (laughs). 40+ year olds do these type of things. Originally, I was very much into running but it doesn’t really work for me anymore.

What I love about running is the fact that you put on your shorts and running shoes and you just go. You get to see a lot of your surroundings, a lot of the city, and you’re working on yourself while clearing your mind. The gym is something else. It’s not the same thing.
In Holland you grow up cycling – I’ve been riding a city bike for 37 years, I would say. You start around five years old and it becomes part of your daily routine. It’s natural to cycle, especially with the great bike lanes we have. Several people in the PATTA team kept saying “Man, I would love to get into cycling. It would be so good to just get a road bike and cycle”, but cycling is very inaccessible. There’s quite a threshold because you need a bike, you need gear and you need a lot of other stuff – it costs quite some money. Most of us in the team, we’re spoilt, we’re used to get stuff thrown at us, let’s be real. So we were like “I’m not going to spend a couple grand to buy a bike!”

When we were introduced to someone from RAPHA, we told them that we would love to start a cycling team. From there onwards, we were introduced to more sponsors and we realized that there’s a possibility to start a team. We got really hooked on that. It means something if a team like PATTA its extended family hop on a bike.

Cycling is very much a white, older men-dominated sport. It’s not that young, there’s not a huge female representation and not a lot of people of colour. PATTA and its extended family is very much all of that. It’s very mixed and it looks very black just because there’s more of a balance of different people. We’re adding to the diversity of the sport.

It’s also very social, that’s something I like about it. We could just be on the bike for hours and chat. And you get to see a lot! I live in the city, kind of suburban. We have such good bike lanes, it takes me literally four minutes and I’m in the fields. It’s all green.

“Cycling is very much a white, older men-dominated sport. It’s not that young, there’s not a huge female representation and not a lot of people of color.

PATTA and its extended family is very much all of that.”

You already touched on that topic but I’d like to dive a little deeper here: How would you describe the community in cycling and what sets the PATTA Cycling team apart?

First of all: The cycling community is super welcoming, open and fun. But like I said, it’s white male dominated. But it’s definitely very much a community, in the truest sense of the word. That’s also how a lot of the brands in this sport are very much community-driven. So it’s not like the PATTA cycling team brought community to the cycling world, it’s more so the diversity. Because again – this sport is very much white male-driven. Also, coming back to the threshold that I was talking about earlier, there’s various of those. You need to have a few thousand Euros of disposable income just for your gear. Theoretically you can start with a cheaper bike but no one who’s really into it, stays on that cheaper bike. People spend up to fifteen thousand Euros on a bike and then get a new one a few years later. It’s very clear, what this community is.

Apart from the gear that your sponsors supported you with, is there anything else that they were able to give your team?

Oh yeah! Again, these teams, these companies – this community. They’re all very welcoming. We’ve had clinics were we had ride leaders and coaches come along for our rides. They are very excited to have all these people that are new to the sport, to take them by the hand and focus on technique etc. – I’m talking about the most basic technique: How you cycle in a group, how you edge along. It’s so exciting to learn all that. The RAPHA ride leaders or our guy from SRAM who does the gears. These workshops are really amazing. There’s a lot of people who have a huge passion for the sport and they truly love to share their knowledge. That’s honestly so cool.

“The answer to a lot of problems is in communities.”

How important do you think it is to keep learning new things when you grow older?

That’s how you make sure you don’t get stuck. I think that this is a really important topic. It’s so easy to just focus on the things that you’re used to and just go further down that rabbit hole. But the more you do that, I think, the more your world gets smaller.

For me personally: I’ve just read this article that said that men after 35 start losing friends. By the time they are 50, a lot of men don’t have any friends left. This is a thing. Learning new things, keep on trying new things and being open will make sure that you have a richer social life. Take cycling as an example, you meet up with people and go for a ride. Obviously you can learn new things by yourself but most of the time when you are diving into something new, you will connect to people that either can teach you more about it or they are on the same level. So you learn new things together.

I think it’s super important to keep learning – you’re actually making sure that you stay vital and flexible in your mind. Because that’s a reality, people getting older and more and more narrow minded: This is the world. This is my vision of the world. There’s nothing else – boom. That’s the saddest thing. In the light of globalization and all these big words, I think community and getting together with people in real life, hyper localism is super important. The answer to a lot of problems is in communities.

Taking it back to the PATTA Cycling Team: On July 1st you set out for the PATTA 150 Challenge, a 150km journey on bikes – what kickstarted this idea and what was it all about?

We were looking for something that could be a challenge, but still accessible. July 1st is the day we celebrate Keti Koti, which means „the chain is broken“. In 2023 we were celebrating 150 years since the abolishment of slavery in the former Dutch colonies, so we thought 150 is the perfect number.

I have only cycled 50km before, so it was quite a challenge but on the other hand I was like „this is the easiest thing!“ – because it was fun. We cycled from the Amsterdam Slavery Monument to the Rotterdam Slavery Monument and back. It turned out to be 162km in the end because we wanted to have lunch in Rotterdam. It was a bit of a challenge but we thought it would be beautiful to do it on this day. To be mindful of that day and it’s meaning.

It was absolutely beautiful, even though it was raining all day. We were soaked. We just wanted to do something special. Another beautiful layer about it was, that a lot of people joined who you would describe as the archetype of a cyclist – older white men.This 150 and what it stood for, what we were referencing to, to make that part of their hobby, sports routine, their passion, have them conscious of what that day meant, that to me was the most beautiful thing about it. It’s a shared history but sometimes it feels like people only see it as Black history. Obviously, what happened in those 400 years of slavery has an effect on everyone, no matter who you are. No matter how wealthy our countries are or the opposites in society. To have people conscious of that history – how much can you expect from a freaking cycling team?! That’s special.

What role does cycling play in your life and how does it show in your daily life?

Right now, I’m in a phase where I haven’t cycled for too long, to be totally honest. It’s winter and part of the team really did say before we started „we’re not cycling in bad weather. We’re good weather cyclists.“

So one thing that stands out to me right now: We have some people that are very successful in their work. But when we go cycle you get to see a totally different side of them. They might be afraid or uncomfortable getting on their bike and that was quite an eye opener. You may think you know someone from what they do and then you see them in a different setting and you get a more complete image of a person. You can see the person grow into it. You have the CEO of something, you see them struggle, and then they’re getting on a bike for the first time. Then you can really see the power of a team.

What I love, is when you have the most experienced person and the least experienced person and you pair them – beautiful things come out of that. It’s maybe not an eye-opener, but a reminder. Even in the workplace, it’s a really great thing to do: If you look at a product or a task, most of the time it’s super important to listen to the oldest person in the room and the youngest person in the room. How do they see it? How different are those views? And then you get the best idea or vision of how to attack things. In cycling it’s so cool to have an inexperienced person learning from the more experienced and for the more experienced person to really feel helpful. Thats a fulfilling thing. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to get someone going, help them up and help them go. And to do that together.

What’s to come for the PATTA Cycling Team?

We have to get younger people on the bike. I don’t know how we do it, but we want this sport to be and stay exciting. We somehow need to push. I know it’s not up to us to change the sport or solve all the problems, but I would want to find a solution for that.Other than that: You’re gonna see more content being pushed, more group rides and us finding a spot in this sport, doing things our way. That means that we try to change things which we see and think are wrong or are lacking. In this case it’s more diversity and getting people from underprivileged backgrounds into the sport. And there’s also gonna be another collection, I will say.