“It's a very complicated feeling to explain. It is not easy to find adjectives to describe a feeling that I would define as a successful project, work, family, shared with many people...". explains José Ramón Ortín, together withAlberto Garcia, bothco-founders of Gobikon the close collaboration that Gobik with UAE Team Emirates.
This is something to be proud of," says Alberto. With more than a year at this level, the truth is that fewer and fewer things surprise us, but the day-to-day is still very hard, We're talking about one of the best teams in the world, if not the best.“.
And the fact is that they are intense days in Yeclathousands of kilometers from France, where the action of the Tour is taking place. There is excitement, but also expectation for the fate of UAE Team Emirates and one of the favorites to win the race, Tadej Pogacar, in the best competition in the world.
An abrupt but necessary change
What today is Gobikthanks to this collaboration, began to take shape about two years ago. During this period the changes have been brutal and the demands, maximum.
Alberto Garcia describes it: "Big changesat the level of structure, organization and development. Now everything is more settled, but the process was complex. The bond with the team is like a couple's relationship, we know each other and we grow hand in hand and face the different challenges. Over time, our knowledge allows us to anticipate expectations".
For José Ramón, This process "has changed us for the better and forever.. Being the technical sponsor of a team at this level says it all. I think it's what needed to give the team a boost. and, with it, to keep improving, modifying, innovating and coming up with new things.
As they both say, the relationship, in its second year, is well established.The situation entailed taking risks from the start, risks that involved, for example, people: "...the relationship is now in its second year.Here is a person from Gobik in contact every day of the year with the team.We have doubled the team of pattern makers, because there is a special and personalized fit for each garment used in the team", says José Ramón. We have doubled the team of pattern makers, because there is a special and personalized fit in each garment that is used in the team," says José Ramón.
Getting down to the real worldto the catalog, the relationship has taken shape in new products with the help of theproducts such as the specific rain suits or the time trial suit that has passed all the tests in the wind tunnel," continues Alberto.
We have to admit that this year much of the work was done with what we brought from the past," adds José Ramón. 80% of the development of the garments came from the 2021 experience, especially in waterproof garments that we developed with them in races like the Giro, which had very harsh weather. 
Gobik on the chest of the world's best cyclist
If there was one iconic day in this whole relationship, it was the finale in Paris last year. It capped the Tour 2021 and Tadej Pogacar had renewed his crown in France. Along the way, three weeks to capture the work of a whole year, a whole life almost, and a magical moment, the one in which, crossing first a finish line in the Pyrenees, the Slovenian took hold of the 'jersey jaune' from below, stretched and the second skin he was wearing emerged..
On it was written Gobikand half the world saw it.
“UAE Team Emirates has put us on the map.at all levels, no doubt about it. The general public is starting to get to know Gobik and its origin from Yeclaand know who we are and that we dress one of the best teams in the world in the most important races" proclaims José Ramón.
And it is not necessary to go to the big headlines, sometimes close gestures speak a thousand times more. "That a friend of your father calls you to congratulate you because he has seen your clothes on TV is a measure of the leap we have made," explains José Ramón.
A July afternoon in Paris
But going back to that moment in Paris, in the epilogue of the Tour, the look in his eyes gets blurred and his voice trembles at the memory.
"If they told us this 10 years ago, we would have taken them for crazy. Last year, when we went to the Champs Elysées and saw all that, the emotion was infinite.tears of joy," explains Alberto.
José Ramón is very graphic: "It was like a child at the amusement park, confirmation that the path we had taken was the right one. Now we are only looking ahead, and the level of demand is constantly increasing.. We work every day and never stop building a project.
“Today Gobik is recognized for where it is. We are in many places and even in a hub such as Italy we are starting to sound strongAnd it is not just any place, it is the cradle of cycling and, as they say, of the "abbigliamento". We know where our origins are, here, in Yecla. and we are working to consolidate it in the future," concludes Alberto García, as he watches the progress of the riders of the Dolomiti Superbikewhere Gobik his grain of sand.
