Tuesday, 18:45 in the evening. A loose group gathers outside a café with bikes leaning on the window, or trainers bouncing on the pavement. Nobody's quite on time. Everyone's glad to be there. This is where SunMer wants to be.
Clubs have become the centre of how people ride and run. On Strava, running clubs grew 3.5 times in 2025, and the platform now hosts more than a million clubs, with club-organised events up 1.5 times on the year before. Gen Z is 39% more likely than Gen X to use fitness to meet people who share their interests.
The club is where people find their pace, their route and their people. It's also where habits are made.
The habit we'd like to change
One study of nearly 2,500 runners found that only 23.5% had adequate sun exposure and protection behaviour. That isn't because runners don't care. Sun protection simply isn't part of the ritual yet. Shoes, bottle, watch, gels: yes. Sun care: maybe, if someone remembers.
Clubs are the best place to change that. They don't need a lecture. They need protection to sit naturally alongside everything else in the kit: the stick passed round at the start line, the reapply at the café stop.
What we mean by "running with clubs"
We don't want to put a logo on a start line and leave. We want to show up, be useful and tell the stories well. In practice:
- Riding and running with you. SunMer will join club runs and rides in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Berlin and beyond.
- The Club Atlas. A series here on SunMer Stories profiling one club at a time: where you meet, the route, the ritual, the captain, and what happens afterwards. Each profile ends with how to join, so new people find you.
- Testing in real conditions. Clubs ride and run in every kind of weather. We'd like club members to test our products and tell us honestly what works and what doesn't.
- Supporting what clubs already do. Social runs, long rides, race days and charity events: where it helps, we'll bring product and support.
- Collaborations over time. As relationships grow, we'd like to build things together. That starts with knowing each other first.
What a good club looks like to us
Size doesn't matter. We're as interested in a twelve-person Sunday gravel group as a two-hundred-strong city run club. What matters is that clubs are:
- Regular: they meet often, whatever the weather.
- Open: new people are welcomed, whatever their pace.
- Outside: they spend real hours under open sky.
Coming up in the Club Atlas
We are launching SunMer.CC, our very own club and community. Now product drops and new collaborations. We will be profiling a series of cycling and run clubs, starting in Amsterdam. Watch this space for more details very soon.
Run or ride with a club?
If you're a captain, organiser or member and you'd like your club to be part of the Club Atlas, get in touch. Tell us where you meet, when, and what makes your club yours.
We'll bring the sun and skin care. You bring the route.
Move in the light.
More stories? Check out our Founders Story
