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Muddy Fox founders Drew Lawson and Ari Hadjipetrou were reunited in Birmingham by the production team filming "Mountain Biking – The Untold Story". The pair haven’t seen each other for 25 years: Lawson has been variously running a bar in Fuerteventura, owning an IT company and renting out properties, and Hadjipetrou – a former shipping entrepreneur – has been in and out of the bicycle industry.
The production crew filmed the reunion at bike cafe Cranked Customs, which is based at the Custard Factory in Digbeth, Birmingham. (This former factory has a historic connection to cycling – Sir Alfred Bird was not just a custard magnate he was also a champion cyclist and defender of cyclists’ rights.)
In the mid-80s, Lawson and Hadjipetrou founded what was to become Muddy Fox during a card game in an ex-pat bar in Saudi Arabia.
Lawson was the marketing brains, creating memorable print ads (Jacquie Phelan’s naked back with pawprints, and the bike-on-a-shimmering-lake ad) as well as a short-lived TV advertising campaign.
The energetic marketing of Muddy Fox helped popularise mountain biking in the UK. The brand was later sold and has been through many hands, including a downmarket period when it was resurrected in 2001 by supermarket-suppluer Universal of Essex.
In the late 1990s Hadjipetrou ran the Welsh contract assember Citi Cycles of Bangor.
"Thanks to Pip Piper and Blue Hippo Media for reuniting me with my old pal Ari Hadjipetrou after a quarter of a century for the filming of Mountain Biking – The Untold Story," said Lawson on Facebook.
"Mountain Biking – The Untold Story" is a Blue Hippo Media/Singletrack co-production and features Britain’s contributions to the history of mountain biking. The main sponsors of the film are Orange, Hope, and Islabikes. Other sponsors include Datatag, Stanton Bikes, Natural Wales and Cotic bikes.
Blue Hippo’s Pip Piper said there’s still room for more sponsors. He said: "Seems to me we are prime for tyre, clothing, backpack, or helmet sponsors."
The film will have its world premiere on July 16th and will later be screen in selected cinemas as well becoming available digitally.
