Northern Irish designer Shea Gribbon, who is well known in the Irish cycling community, has teamed up with Nike to design trainers celebrating Mark Cavendish's historic ride at the Tour de France this year.
Gribbon customises shoes, accessories and clothing under The Shoe Dr moniker. He has made a name for himself in the Irish and international cycling community customising shoes for the pros and amateur riders alike.
He was contacted by Nike during the summer and was asked to customise trainers to celebrate Cavendish winning four stages of the Tour to reach a career stage win tally of 34.
That equaled the all-time Tour stage win record of Eddy Merckx. It was one of the biggest successes of the year, especially as Cavendish is now aged 36 years and spent several seasons in the wilderness as he struggled to come back from Epstein Barr virus.
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Gribbon clearly caught Nike's eye with his customising of trainers and cycling shoes for the likes of former Irish road race champion Ben Healy and other World Tour pros including Harry Tanfield at La Vuelta last year and Luka Mezgec, who sported Gribbon's work at this year's Tour.
"In July I got a message from Nike asking if I had availability to create eight pairs of custom Air Forces. At the time I was pretty booked up but when it was revealed who they were for I knew I needed to take this project on," said Gribbon.
"Creating shoes for one the best cyclists in the history of the sport was not an opportunity to be passed. The occasion for the shoes was celebrating Mark equaling the stage win record of 34 stages over a period of 14 years and being a Nike athlete all of this time."
Gribbon added the brief was to "celebrate the milestone but also the blood, sweat and tears put in by Mark to achieve this after so long; to celebrate with those who stood by and believed and still believe".
He has designed eight pairs of Air Forces, for Cavendish and his wife and their children, and the private commission from Nike is a real step up for his growing business.
