From an Old Frame to an Official Partnership: Stradalli Joins Tri For the 22

Sometimes the most meaningful parts of a journey are the ones you never planned.

A few weeks ago, I had never heard of Stradalli Carbon.

Today, I'm proud to announce that Stradalli has officially joined Tri For the 22 as a campaign partner.

And the way we got here makes this one particularly special.

It Started With a Frame

When Montgomery Bicycle Club stepped up to support Tri For the 22, one of the biggest pieces of that support was a donated carbon road-bike frame: a 2012 Stradalli Sorrento.

At the time, that's essentially all it was to me — a frame.

I knew I needed a bike capable of carrying me through the 56-mile bike leg of IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga. I knew buying a modern triathlon bike wasn't realistically in the campaign budget. And I knew this old carbon frame gave me an opportunity to build something capable instead.

So I started building.

And learning.

A lot.

The Sorrento arrived nowhere near race-ready. What followed became a ground-up resurrection: crankset, bottom bracket, drivetrain, brakes, cockpit, saddle, wheels, tires, cables, pedals — and an impressive collection of tiny pieces of bicycle hardware whose existence I was completely unaware of before this project began.

There have been wrong parts.

Missing parts.

Compatibility problems.

Orders followed almost immediately by canceled orders.

And more than a few moments standing in the garage staring at the bike and wondering which engineer decided bicycles needed quite this many standards.

But slowly, a bare carbon frame started looking like a bicycle again.

More importantly, it started becoming my race bike.

One Little Problem

Eventually, I ran into a problem with the front derailleur.

The Sorrento is roughly fourteen years old. Finding definitive technical information about the frame wasn't exactly as easy as pulling up the manual for a current-production bike.

So I went to the source.

I contacted Stradalli.

I was really just trying to answer a technical question about an old frame.

Instead, that email introduced me to Rob "Cole" Hudson, one of the people behind the current Stradalli.

Cole helped me figure out what I needed for the bike.

Then he did something I wasn't expecting.

He visited the Tri For the 22 website.

"Count Us In!!!"

After learning what this bike was being built for, the conversation changed.

Cole told me that he and the Stradalli team loved what Tri For the 22 was doing and wanted to find ways to help. We started talking about the Sorrento build, equipment, training, Chattanooga, and the larger mission behind the campaign.

There was another connection I hadn't expected: Cole previously lived in Huntsville and still has friends in the area.

Even more importantly, he told me about connections within Stradalli's community to retired military members and offered to explore whether some of those veterans might want to get involved with the mission.

At that point, I decided to ask a bigger question.

Rather than simply accepting some help with an old bicycle, would Stradalli be interested in becoming an official partner of Tri For the 22?

Cole's response was three words:

"Count us in!!!"

And just like that, the name already written across the downtube of my race bike became part of the campaign behind it.

There's More to This Bike Than I Realized

After Montgomery Bicycle Club gave me the frame, I started researching the company whose name was on it.

Stradalli wasn't a new company at all.

The brand dates back to 2007 and built much of its business through a direct-to-consumer model rather than the enormous dealer networks that make the biggest bicycle manufacturers household names among cyclists.

Stradalli also has a history in competitive cycling.

But the company eventually entered a period of transition. The business was offered for sale in 2020, and in 2024 it began a new chapter under new ownership, with Rob and Cole Hudson working to rebuild and grow the brand.

That gives this partnership a symmetry I couldn't have manufactured if I'd tried.

I'm rebuilding an older Stradalli.

They're building the next generation of Stradalli.

And we're both moving forward.

Old Bike. New Mission.

There's a philosophy behind Tri For the 22 that I've returned to repeatedly:

Movement Creates Momentum.

It applies physically. Get out the door. Take the first step. Swim the first lap. Ride the first mile. Momentum follows movement.

But increasingly, I'm realizing it applies to this campaign itself.

Montgomery Bicycle Club offered a frame.

That frame caused me to start building a bike.

Building the bike created a technical problem.

That problem caused me to contact Stradalli.

That email caused Cole to discover Tri For the 22.

And that conversation resulted in another organization deciding to stand behind the mission.

None of those things happen without the one before it.

Movement creates momentum.

Taking the Sorrento to Chattanooga

Stradalli has given Tri For the 22 permission to carry its name and logo on the campaign website, marketing materials, and my race gear.

They're also looking through available equipment and backstock to see what they can contribute to the build and training effort, and they've offered their expertise as I continue getting the Sorrento properly set up.

But perhaps the most exciting conversation is the one looking beyond Chattanooga.

Cole has already floated the possibility that, after I complete this first triathlon aboard the Sorrento, we could begin talking about building one of Stradalli's next-generation TT/triathlon frames.

That's a conversation for another day.

Because this bike has some unfinished business first.

The immediate objective remains exactly the same:

Finish the Sorrento. Get it fitted. Train on it. Put a ridiculous number of miles underneath it.

Then roll into transition at IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga in May 2027 with STRADALLI written across the bike and Tri For the 22 across my chest.

Fifty-six miles later, that old Sorrento will have done exactly what Montgomery Bicycle Club hoped it would do when they handed me the frame:

It will have helped carry this mission forward.

Welcome to the Mission

I'm incredibly grateful to Cole, Rob, and everyone at Stradalli for believing enough in what we're building to put their name behind it.

And I'm proud to officially welcome Stradalli Carbon as a partner of Tri For the 22.

It's funny.

A few weeks ago, I looked at that unfamiliar name on the side of a donated frame and wondered: who the hell is Stradalli?

Now I know.

And I'm looking forward to seeing where we go together.

Because 22 ≠ 0.

Movement Creates Momentum.

Support: Bike build technical support & campaign partnership

Meet our campaign partners →