As a child, Ryan Dungey remembers tasting his dad's overly-sugared Folgers coffee which soured him on the early morning habit - like it probably did with many kids - most adults enjoy.
Little did he know, a future pre-practice ritual involving the country's most consumed beverage, would eventually guide his post-career life.
"That was my experience with coffee," said the four-time 450 Supercross and three-time 450 Motocross Champion of that first sip. Dungey, 32, retired from fulltime racing after securing the 2017 450 class Supercross title but returned for the 2022 Motocross season after a five-year hiatus and finished sixth in the points standings.
A coffee house stop one morning, circa 2006, before Motocross practice with teammates resulted in a tradition and Dungey's budding racing career gave him the opportunity to expand his coffee palate with different blends from varying regions around the world. It didn't take long before Dungey understood the joy that comes with a cup of joe.
"I do like coffee, it just needs to be roasted and brewed the right way," he said.
Dungey's java filled veins may or may not have helped him win a race or two but once he retired after that 2017 season transitioning into the coffee business came naturally. Initially, opening a coffee shop, perhaps similar to the one that originally percolated his interest, was in play. Then COVID hit. He put the brakes on the coffee shop idea, brewed over financial numbers and what opening a coffee house entails before rolling the throttle on a roasting and packaging business.
RD Coffee was born.
"I can roast my beans, do an e-commerce approach and share with the country," Dungey said.
Like his racing days, Dungey competes or at least brews at the highest level if such a thing exists in the coffee trade. He was near hands-on with everything at the gate drop, starting like so many small businesses do, in his garage, roasting small batches. This 250 class of coffee roasting quickly turned into the 450 class and Dungey was unable to keep up with demands. He enlisted the help of a roasting partner, waved the checker flag on his garage gig and outsourced the roasting process but stayed on top of the quality and integrity process.
Dungey started his roasting operation in his garage
"I did not want to outsource where I became out of touch," he said. "Someone else is roasting, but I am very in tune with what's going on."
Dungey credits his racing days for educating him on the different coffee regions around the world along with the popular roasting processes. Conduction, uses steel drum roasters and 40 percent of the bean gets cooked when coming into contact with the hot metal surface, the other 60 percent is roasted from the hot air. RD Coffee uses convection, considered a more modern approach to coffee bean roasting method, employing a Loring roaster where 90 to 95 percent of the bean gets cooked by hot air flow allowing much more control over the process and Dungey found it creates better and consistent results.
A stateside company called Café Import allowed Dungey to experiment with roasting coffee beans from more than half a dozen regions saving time and the expense of touring coffee plantations while giving him a well-balanced approach into his caffeinated venture.
"The final step was to figure out which beans to roast and from which region. Once I figured that out, then I had to dial in on that right profile. Not to acidic, not too bold. Find that sweet spot," he said. "It was a lot of hours through trial and error. I started with one roast at a time and I developed a new blend every few months."
Today, RD Coffee roasts five coffee blends - Rev, Accelerate, Alway5, Charged and Holeshot - taking beans from regions like Peru, Brazil, Guatemala and Columbia. Accelerate, which started it all, remains Dungey's go-to, usually black, but sometimes with a splash of half and half.
RD Coffee also has a limited-edition Holiday Blend brew. Ten percent of proceeds from the Holiday Blend along with the available "Holiday" related products goes towards the Ryan Dungey Foundation, a fund-raising operation near and dear to the racer's heart.
Bags of RD Coffee ready to ship
"The Ryan Dungey Foundation, that was a long time coming," he said. "The beginning was when I was about 14 or 15 when I lost my grandmother to cancer. From that point forward I was looking at what I can do. I wasn't pro and it wasn't looking good to go pro either so I thought maybe I can do a foundation."
Dungey, who lives in Minnesota, indeed turned pro when he was 16, and had Target, with headquarters in Minneapolis, as one of his early sponsors. This introduced him to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Target House. Dungey founded an annual charity bike ride in 2012 and raised more than $1 million through 2019 before COVID ended the eight-year operation.
"COVID shifted things around a bit, so I started the foundation in 2021. It's a public foundation and it allows me to choose the charities I want to support," Dungey said.
Through his foundation, Dungey continues to support St. Jude as well as All Kids Bike, a non-profit that teaches underprivileged children how to ride on two-wheels as early as kindergarten.
MotoSport welcomes Ryan Dungey to the team! We've partnered with Ryan Dungey to produce a special edition, small batch of RD Coffee called MotoSport Race Fuel only available at MotoSport.com. For every bag purchased, MotoSport will donate $5 to Boot Campaign's Santa Boots Program to surprise military families with holiday gifts from grateful Americans.
Check out our interview with Ryan Dungey on coming out of retirement to race the 2022 Motocross season.
Well now. Don't we feel stupid. Dungey shuts his coffee shop down a mere four months later.
