A very warm speleo-welcome to you!

Thanks for stopping by. Speleolabs is here to help promote the sport of caving, and to hopefully provide a bit of entertainment and daftness along the way. This site also showcases the Speleolabs range, which has been developed to celebrate all things speleological.

Feel free to roam around our site, push a digital trolley round our virtual shop. and let us know what you think.

What?

This all started with a daft yet cunning idea. We figured that for years other active sports have had the benefit of leading fashion brands bringing a sense of style to their respective sports. And for the caver? Nothing. Unless you count the Kingsdale oversuit. We think that there is a need for a range of stuff that allows cavers to express their caving credentials to the world above ground. We wanted to develop a cavers-only brand that the caving community can can truly identify with, a brand we feel they deserve. Not only that, but a brand that is better, more stylish, cheaper, more exclusive, inclusive and less exploitative than all the others. Work soon began back at the lab...

Why? - A Loose History

The history of Speleolabs is mainly in the past. It began with a single man and a double garage. Andy Rumming, a name well known on the caving circuit has always been handy with his hands, and has a long history of making bespoke and feature rich caving gear for himself and a few lucky others. A succession of tackle bags, goretex jackets, one-off T shirts and camping equipment have been designed, tested and lost by Andy.

Soon after being joined by The Boy Paul and his creatively ignorant approach to marketing the work of 'the speleolab' soon gave birth to a whole new marketing identity. We became fed up of seeing branded T Shirts and hooded tops for other sports on sale at prices two to three times more expensive than we thought they should be, bearing logos that meant nothing to us. Slowly it dawned on us that we could do better (and cheaper), and we set out to design our own.

Speleolabs was officially launched at the Hidden Earth conference in 2003, with a difficult-to-forget catwalk show and a free sweet giveway. We are indebted to people for the goodwill exhibited there, and the kind e-mails from around the world over the past year. We are particularly proud of cornering 15% of the Norwegian caving market in a single weekend (alright Terje?). And we are due back this year. With Beards. We are very much looking forward to see you there.

The Speleolabs Philosophy

We think we are able to supply quality clothing and accesories at a price that doesn't take advantage of anyone who makes their own choice to buy. We hope to offer you something more exclusive, and better value than other clothing lines. We're not pretending to sell you self-belief at a 200% mark up and we don't think you should have to pay through the nose for the dubious privilege of becoming a mobile advertising hoarding for some brand that means nothing to you. Not only that, we also offer you the prospect of mass customisation. We are a small organisation and can adapt to demand very quickly. Should you want a new product we will endevour to supply it.

The Speleolabs project is therefore a bit of an experiment - we are just curious to see how far we can take this and hope you feel able to join us in promoting the sport. And we promise that all profits from this venture have and will be ploughed back into future product development to expand our stocks and range to reflect what people tell us they want.

Our Promise

We believe that we offer excellent value. We promise to deliver your goods in 28 days (and hopefully within a week). If for some unforeseen reason we are able to achieve this we will immediately notify you of any delay and offer you the chance to receive your money back instead.

Please bear in mind we are a small outfit and have a limited range of products on offer and a limited stock inventory. Clothing is produced in batches of ten, and we should have it in stock or be able to source it within a week, if not we'll let you know.

Finally, Who Are We?

Speleolabs leading lights (subject to battery failure) are:

Mr Andy Rummage, Concept Philosopher	'The Boy' Paul Lifestyle Consultant

No doubt we will bump into you under ground at some point. In the meantime we are always grateful for any feedback or comments you may have, and are particularly open to suggestions on what you would like to see on a new item of speleowear. You can also post feedback directly to the main page of the site for all to see. Go on, be daft. Go comment!

The Speleolabs Team.