Ansar Ahamed, engineer who built a Rs 10-cr riding gear brand

Sabir Hussain/New Delhi

Motorcycles had been Ansar Ahamed’s passion since he was a teenager in the 1990s. As a schoolboy, used to hang around a mechanic’s workshop in Chennai to see how a bike is dismantled for service and repair and how it is put back in shape.

But the real attraction for apprenticing with the mechanic was the prospect of riding in a motorcycle race. Eventually, he did get to ride on street races.

“I learned the nuances of biking and racing from this man and the other mechanics,” Ansar told Awaz-The Voice.

But the problem was that there was a lack of riding gear because they were simply too costly to buy.

“We were from a lower-middle-class family and a riding suit used to cost almost Rs 50,000 which was out of reach. Those were imported suits and there was no domestic manufacturer those days. We used to wear second-hand suits or jackets that had been damaged and torn and were repaired with multiple patches which meant that they didn’t offer the protection they were supposed to. In fact, the gear looked like patchwork,” says 45-year-old Ansar, the youngest of four siblings.

Ansar in his younger days with his firts motorcycle, a Yamaha RX 100

A crash meant that the rider would still be hurt despite wearing riding gear because gthe security has been compromised.

“When I grew up and went on motorcycle tours I met many other bikers and the common gripe was that riding gear was too costly. It had been playing on my mind that we need to have affordable riding gear so motorcycle enthusiasts can chase their dreams without fear,” he says.

But that quest to actually make affordable riding gear was a fleeting one and was quickly banished to the background for over a decade as the daily grind of life overtook everything else. 

Ansar, who graduated as an electrical engineer, worked at a few places and even ran a small business before joining the IT sector and served in Pune and Chennai.

“I knew nothing about computer networking. I think they hired my batch just because we could speak good English,” he laughs. But he learned quickly on the job and ended up as a vice-president in an IT firm.

Despite the hectic schedule of his job, his love of motorcycling never faded. During his days in Pune, he established the ‘Dukes of Pune’ a group of superbikers made up of owners of KTM Duke motorcycles in 2012. That exercise would also prove to be a turning point for his entrepreneurial desires.  

The only riding gear that bikers could buy in Pune was from Alpinestars, an Italian brand. But they were expensive with a riding jacket costing about Rs 25,000. And that proved to be the catalyst that set him on the course to make affordable jackets.

And so, Biking Brotherhood Gears or BBG as it is popularly called was born in 2013 with Ansar hiring two tailors. While he was still posted in Pune, Biking Brotherhood started working from the ground floor of his house in Chennai. Initially, he focused on repairing riding gear, mostly jackets. While it helped riders save time and money, it also helped Ansar expand his business quickly into manufacturing riding gear.

In 2015, he quit his job to devote himself full time to his manufacturing business.

“I was earning Rs 2 lakh a month as vice president of the IT company when I decided to involve myself full time in my own company,” he says.

The initial years were good as his business expanded quickly and he had to move the operations out of his home to a larger place. But within six months he needed an even large place to run his operations. He had saved enough money to try to buy a prime property in Chennai to set up BBG’s flagship store in 2019. He was lucky he didn’t have to take a bank loan to buy the 6880 sq feet property.

“As a Muslim, I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea that I would be paying interest on a bank loan. I told the seller who is also a Muslim, that I would pay half the price as a down payment and the rest of it in interest-free installments. He was kind enough to agree and I am on target to make the last payment in March.”

 

Ansar leading India's first Orange Ride in Pune in 2013

Ansar imports the raw materials mostly from South Korea and has 140 tailors and pattern masters who make the jackets, gloves, and boots in the factory. BBG’s jackets cost between Rs 6000 to Rs 10000 which is much cheaper than imported ones. In a short period of time, about 150 dealers across the country have helped push BBG’s sales to comfortable levels.

“Last year we achieved a turnover of Rs 10 crore. We now have 70 products and are planning to introduce a few more. Each new product needs an investment of Rs 5 lakh.”

His products now have a fan following. One such fan even wrote a blog to thank Ansar after he survived two crashes in five hours in Rajasthan because of the armoured BBG jacket he was wearing.

Ansar says BBG is working on developing its own armour for jackets that could help bring down costs further. On the flip side, input costs have been rising rapidly since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

“The cost of some of the raw materials has risen six-fold. There is also the problem of finding containers for timely delivery of raw materials. But we have still managed to do well for ourselves. The pandemic also affected us in different ways. Because the pandemic was not evenly spread in the country it meant that sometimes we could not dispatch goods to a part of the country where transport curbs were in force.”

The pandemic also forced Ansar to downsize the workforce. “It wouldn’t have been possible for me to feed my entire workforce when business was low. We laid off some people but hired many of them back after the situation improved.” 

Ansar’s association with the racing circuit in Chennai also helped BBG’s profile. Many racers wear his products.

“We have a presence in all major cities surprised but I was pleasantly surprised by the response from the Northeast because the people seemed very knowledgeable about the gear they wanted.”

The growth of his business meant that he no longer has the time to go motorcycling as he used to in his younger days. But on race days at the Madras Motor Race Track he is a regular fixture because his brand is part of the circuit. In 2016, he suffered a freak accident on the race track.

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“I was standing on the edge of the track when a novice rider rammed into me and then rode over my back. It took some time for me to recover although my back sometimes still complains.”

He has since recovered to devote himself again to his passion for making quality riding that doesn’t cost a limb.

Ansar lives in Chennai with his wife and mother. Two of his elder brothers and sister live in Jeddah.