A cycling café brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously
Middle Aged Man in Lycra
The problem
In 2021 Dave, a keen cyclist with a long career in catering, came to Lewis with a café to open and a cycling theme in mind. Cycling culture is famously stylish and steeped in the history of the great European races. The café needed to live up to that, with a touch of humour so it never felt like a club for insiders.
What Lewis designed
The brand plays on the not-always-kind name for cyclists: the Middle Aged Man in Lycra. The logo, handlebars and a saddle drawn as one mark, nods to cycling without shutting anyone else out.
Lewis designed the menus, the cups and the walls. The menus bring in secondary typefaces and colours so they never feel heavy, and murals built on the handlebar motif sit alongside framed jerseys and tributes to cycling’s heroes, giving each café a clubhouse feel.
MAMIL has since opened two more café bars on the same identity, in Hebden Bridge and Brighouse, and the brand is now known across Calderdale.
