Daniel Morgali and Jack Trumbly fly through the trees on their bikes, tires crunching on the gravel. Branches whip past them as the boys pedal faster and faster, weaving around the trail. One last push and they emerge into a clearing, sun beating down on them, the identical glasses on their faces glint in the brightness.
In October of 2024, freshmen Daniel Morgali and Jack Trumbly put into motion their entrepreneurial venture, RideLens, a sports glasses brand designed and produced by the Bowie students
“RideLens are high quality, affordable glasses,” Trumbly said. “They’re comfortable and stylish, built for every kind of sport, and they’re just overall great glasses.”
Morgali and Trumbly decided to create their own glasses brand after their experience with eye-wear in the sport they met in, mountain biking. They spent the past summer painting home addresses to raise funds, eventually collecting enough to launch what has quickly become a flourishing business.
“When you are on cross-country bikes flying through the trails, there’s a lot of branches and you need to keep your eyes safe,” Morgali said. “So, we wear sunglasses, but we were tired of spending money all the time after breaking glasses that cost $250. We wanted to create something affordable but with the same quality as every other glasses brand.”
The co-owners are both members of the Bowie Composite Mountain Biking Team, which is made up of bikers from Bowie and South Austin middle schools. Mountain biking consists of off-road competitive bicycle racing usually on rough terrain, such as the trails around Austin.
“I’ve been biking for many years now, and I just love the thrill of endurance biking, and learning the technique of riding,” Morgali said. “It’s what led me to making the first RideLens.”
Typical sports glasses are used in a wide range of physical activities that require both eye protection and sun prevention, such as baseball, golf, tennis, and more. RideLens glasses enhance upon that with detachable arm and nose pieces, two interchangeable lenses, and lens care essentials, all included in the purchase price of $35.
“Being a biker, we know what’s ideal for glasses,” Trumbly said. “We know what fits well while you’re wearing a helmet, and what’s comfortable to use while biking, running and playing other types of sports.”
The actual sport-shades are manufactured and shipped by an external supplier, following a design created and selected by the RideLens team.
“We did hours and hours of research to find the best and fastest factories,” Morgali said. “Ordered tons of samples to figure out the best one for the price, and we studied all the plastics and all the lenses.”
A large part of the RideLens brand has been its active social media, in which over a dozen posts focus on the glasses in unboxings, reviews, advertisements, and edits. They can be found on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube under the handle, ridelens_official.
“Daniel and Jack are super hard working,” Morgali’s mother Maria Garcia said. “They spend a lot of hours working on their online store and their social media. Also building relationships with potential buyers like big mountain bike brands.”
Morgali and Trumbly are working on partnering with different biking and athletic brands, and have been recognized on social media accounts like the Texas Mountain Biking League Instagram and more. They have had vendor booths at several different biking events and races, and will soon be featured on the back of the Bowie Run Club t-shirts as a sponsor.
“Jack and Daniel are natural entrepreneurs,” Garcia said. “They are passionate about mountain biking, so if you combine those two things, I am sure they will be extremely successful.”
Several members of the boys’ biking team have become early supporters of RideLens, frequently wearing the glasses during their rides on the trail. The entrepreneurs gifted samples of their first product out to their teammates, with one of them, sophomore Joaquin Gonzalez, even going as far as to bike 100 miles with the shades to prove their durability.
“They definitely like to involve people from the team,” sophomore Tyson Schwartz said. “I was one of the first people to get a pair of RideLens, and they really wanted to know what the feedback was and what we thought about their product. We tried it out, and we liked it a lot.”
Earlier this year, Schwartz met Morgali and Trumbly and has since collaborated with them on various aspects of the business, including developing the upcoming website and assisting with product photography.
“They’ve progressed really quickly for being a homemade business, and it’s the way they’ve been getting all these deals, and promoting it, and starting all their social media accounts,” Schwartz said. “The way they did it, it worked really well.”
With little outside help from their parents or other mentors, Morgali and Trumbly have paved the way for their business. They have had to overcome hurdles such as obtaining an Employer Identification Number for taxes and juggling other challenges accompanied with their young age.
“It can be a bit challenging at times to get work done with our business, while also doing schoolwork on the side, but we always manage to make time for it,” Trumbly said.
RideLens’ primary goal is to give back to the athletic community, and Morgali and Trumbly have already taken big strides to establish themselves in it.
“Mountain biking is my passion,” Trumbly said. “It’s fun to be able to make the glasses, do something that we love, and put it into our passion of biking.”
