Author Archive for: charlie

There is a bewildering range of fabrics available for custom cycling jerseys and it is down to us to choose the best one for our clients. To get high quality sublimation printing (the process by which designs are dyed into the fabric so that they will never peel or degrade) requires the use of a synthetic fabric, as natural materials will not take sublimation printing well. That does not narrow things down much however, so here are the criteria that we look at when selecting our cycling jersey fabric:
*heat & moisture regulation
*air permeability & water vapour permeability
*wicking capacity
*speed of drying
*dimensional stability (also when wet)
*durability
*breathability
*elasticity
*lightweight
*ease of care (washing and tumble drying)
*softness of touch
*sharpness of colours with sublimation printing

When we receive samples from our fabric suppliers we test them first in the lab to see how they rate against these criteria (which will mean more than 90% are rejected), then we make up cycling jersey samples to be tested first by staff and then by professional riders. To get to this stage in our testing will take around 3 months. If we are then convinced that this new fabric is the very best available on the market then we will supply it to one of our tester club teams and get their feedback, before we release it to the general market.

All of our cycling jerseys actually use multiple fabrics (a mixture of mesh for superior aeration, lycra panels to give a contoured fit in the appropriate places, silicone coated grippers for the arms and the principal fabric itself). Here we will only consider the principal fabric which in our case is a carbon fibre blended into a high specification microfibre thread with a perforated weave.

Cyclists will of course be used to frames being made with carbon, but there are numerous benefits from incorporating carbon thread into the microfibre thread – it helps to give the jersey outstanding heat and vapour/moisture management, it makes it extremely strong/durable but still lightweight. Added to this the weave gives four way stretch to the fabric which helps to give a contoured fit and reduce any flapping in the wind and it is perforated to maximise breathability with a silk soft finish that will never get sticky and cling to your skin.

We are confident that our custom cycling jersey fabric is the very best available on the planet and you can rest assured that we use the same rigour when testing the multitude of other fabrics that we use in our range like for our bib shorts, custom tri-suits and so on.

The truth is that these kind of very high-end fabrics are extremely expensive (using high end fabrics as opposed to a more basic version nearly doubles our cost of production), but we manage to keep our prices manageable because we save money in the rest of our business, which means we can provide high-end kit at reasonable prices. We don’t use national distributors (only selling direct from Portugal), we don’t sponsor big teams, travel to trade shows, advertise in glossy cycling magazines and all the other kinds of branding which have been taking over the cycling industry in recent years. Rather we run a more old-fashioned bread and butter type of business, where our focuses are just quality of product and customer service. So if you are looking for a glitzy brand that you can see on the telly we are probably not for you – if it is just high quality at fair prices, then please give us a call!

Also please contact us if you would like to see samples from our range and test them for yourself!

We just wanted to assure our clients and prospective clients that we are still open for business at Carvalho Custom. Where possible our staff are working from home, but our fabrication of custom cycling & triathlon clothing is still going on. We have reworked our factory so that there is appropriate distancing between staff and staggered breaks so that there is plenty of room in our canteen and so on.

Please get in touch if you would like to get started on the design or order of your club cycling kit or club triathlon clothing.

Pretty much all custom cycling & triathlon clothing will be made with sublimation printing and we get a number of questions about it from our clients so here is an explanation of how it works and the possibilities that it gives you for your design ideas.

The basics of sublimation printing is that the design is printed on a special sublimation printer with specific inks to fit the panels that will be sewn together to make up your design. These sheets of paper are then laid over the white fabric that the garment will be made from and heat is applied. This heat will cause the ink on the paper to transform into a gas and simultaneously open up the pores of the fabric, which will effectively dye the upper layers of the fabric with the design. The white fabric can then be laser cut into panels and sewn together to make the garment.

The great advantage of this process is that the print does not sit on top of the fabric as it did with previous printing technologies, so it will not be subject to cracking or peeling; the other main advantage is that printing can be done with endless numbers of colours and intricacies of design as the sublimation paper can be printed like a desktop print prints a design off your computer.

It is in short a fabulous technology, but there are a few things you need to be aware of – the first is that although very intricate designs are possible, having detailed design elements cross the seams of garments is not a great idea, because when the panels are sewn together, it is very difficult to be millimetre accurate in getting one panels to line up with the next one. The fabrics we use are all stretchy, so as they are pulled through a sewing machine it is impossible to always be 100% accurate, so you can get small misalignments over seams. Generally this is not a problem, but for example small lettering over seams can be problematic. Our advice with designs is always to try and work with the panel construction of our cycling & triathlon garments, rather than work against it.

A second issue with sublimation printing is the kind of fabrics that can be used – you will only get the best quality print with 100% polyester (i.e. synthetic) fabrics. You can print on polyester blend fabrics, but you will not get such sharp colours. The real issue for us is that to make our full range of cycling & triathlon kit we have to use a wide range of fabrics, with several different kinds of lycra for different garments and for example 3 different fabrics used on a single cycling jersey. The problem that this brings for us is that different fabrics can print slightly differently, with some printing brighter than others for example. We have to ensure for example that the red a client chooses for their design, will be the same shade for the tri suit, as for the cycling jersey and for the hoodie. Also when we update a fabric and a client reorders, we have to make sure that the colour prints exactly the same shade. This means we have to constantly test and adjust the exact colours we print on the sublimation paper to make sure it comes out right on the garment.

The reason we charge a design fee for new designs is that the work of setting up the production of a garment is rather time consuming, because not only do we have to take a design idea shown in a 2D version to be converted on to individual panels that will match up correctly, we also have to do the work to make sure that the colours come out exactly as specified. For those clients who are particularly concerned about getting the colours exactly right, we print out the design on the fabric of the garment in question and post it to clients for them to approve (even printing a range of different shades of a colour for a client to choose from when required).

We invest a lot of money in buying the very best in sublimation printing technology and heat presses, so that we can print fast but with no smudging or blurring. We also have to assess all new fabrics to make sure that they will take sublimation printing well – some fabrics make appear to initially print well, but when they are stretched they will tend to whiten as the underlying colour of the fabric shows through the outer layers that have been sublimation printed.

We have been using sublimation printing for over 20 years and we do it all in-house so we have a profound understanding of the process – please see our design tips for custom cycling & triathlon clothing here, but if you have any questions or need help developing your design, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

There is an enormous amount of puff written by custom cycling clothing suppliers about the amazing properties of their shorts and how they can uniquely improve the comfort of the rider, but the truth is there is a limit to how much cycling shorts can contribute to relieving a sort backside. Here we will look at what cycling shorts can do to resolve discomfort and what they can’t do.

The obvious place to start is with the chamois (another name for the pad) – there is a fair bit of misinformation and inflated claims by cycling clothing manufacturers about their chamoises, often around the different densities of foam, the anatomical shape of the padding and the flexing of the pad. The real key areas of importance for a chamois however are the durability of the padding, the quality of the seams and the bulkiness of the pad. Whilst the distribution of the padding over different areas of the chamois are important, it is actually less complicated than you may have been lead to believe, in that the chamois’s main job is to provide cushioning for the seat bones – in other areas of the chamois, its function should be to provide a soft, low-friction interface for the area between your legs with some minimal padding.

The quality of the foam used for a great chamois as opposed to a low quality one is without doubt the most important feature, but it will only be truly revealed after it has been ridden on for a while. That is because good quality foam will not lose its cushioning capability nearly so fast than low quality foam (although please note that even top quality foam will always deteriorate over time). This means that a great chamois will take time to reveal its true properties, but the two other areas you can check out in a new chamois are the seams and the bulkiness – as one of the chamoises key purposes is to minimise friction, having prominent seams is a major negative point, so the high end chamoises will have bonded seams that are entirely smooth with no wrinkles or uneven edges. Cutting down the bulk of the chamois (everywhere except for the necessary cushioning for the seat bones) is also very important as any bulkiness will tend to bunch up and form a friction point.

Our point here is that making a great chamois requires it to fulfil rather simple objectives, but to achieve this simplicity is rather difficult and expensive. To give you an idea, the wholesale price for a high end chamois will be around €6, but you can buy cheap ones for under €1! Our chamois pictured above is we think among the very best available on the market, because it provides the key features mentioned above in a minimalist way.

A pair of cycling shorts can contribute two more things to backside comfort – first the panelling construction of the shorts and shoulder straps have to work to make sure the chamois is held firmly in place when in the riding position (so when you are bend over the handlebars rather than standing upright) so that the chamois is always in the right position and second to use fabrics in the shorts that are soft, will not bunch up and are breathable.

In this post, we are not going to discuss saddle design, other than to say there is no universal answer and it is very much down to personal choice. It is worthwhile to discuss another critical factor that contributes to backside comfort, which is your pedaling technique. Having a good pedal stroke is something that will naturally evolve as you ride more, not least because of the strengthening of appropriate ligaments and muscles that will allow you to maintain correct technique for prolonged periods. You can also actively work on improving your pedal stroke with sources like http://www.zendurancecycling.com/cycling-technique-for-cycling-performance.html .

The key thing to understand in terms of the relationship between backside comfort and pedal technique is that as a road cyclist doing reasonable distances, your pedal technique should be such that you are taking most of your body weight on your legs, rather than on your backside. That is to say that you are alternating your weight from one leg to the other to push down on the pedals, rather than taking the majority of the weight on the saddle and just using leg muscles to produce down-force on the pedals. With forces being equal and opposite, taking your weight in your legs will gently push your backside up from the saddle and so reduce the load that it is bearing. You should be doing this even when you are soft pedaling. Your relationship between your backside and your saddle should be more like how you lean against a leaning rail that you sometimes find at train stations (or even on trains). Essentially your feet take most of the weight.

When you get this pedaling technique right, you will always have tension in one or other of your quads (in fact even when you freewheel) – you should never just be slumped on your saddle. Having strong core muscles is an important part to getting this technique right, as your abdominal muscles should be working to pull weight from the front of the saddle and redistribute it down through your backside to your legs, which is something that will happen naturally as your pedaling technique demands that you redistribute your weight away from your saddle to your legs. Taking this weight off your backside can dramatically improve your comfort in the saddle, perhaps more so than any other factor.

If that all sounds rather complicated and perhaps you are new to cycling, not to worry, it is something that should come naturally as you ride more and your brain works out how to get more power to the legs. In other words taking weight off your saddle and redistributing it to your legs is not something you naturally do to make yourself more comfortable, it is something you will naturally do as your brain works out how to make your pedal stroke more efficient. The fact that it will make your backside incredibly more comfortable on a bike is a happy side effect!

Here at Carvalho Custom we do what we can to make all of our custom cycling & triathlon clothing the very best in can be, but we avoid making over-the-top and frankly dishonest claims about how much are kit can do. We just strive to offer the very best to our customers and let our kit speak for us.

Selecting the fabrics that we are going to use for the custom cycling & triathlon kit that we supply is one of the more difficult tasks. Every year fabric manufacturers produce new fabrics with all sorts of promises about breathability, UV protection, elasticity, anti-microbial properties, aero-dynamics and durability and it is out job to sort out the hype from the reality. This involves a lot of testing either in our lab or on the road, but one of the hardest things to test for is durability, because although you can simulate long term usage to some extent, the only true test is to actually use a garment over a prolonged period.

Our approach is to only change fabrics when it is absolutely clear that there has been a genuine advance in fabric technology, rather than launch new fabrics every year just to ride the latest wave of hype. This is really for two reasons – first it helps to keep our costs down to offer our clients only a limited range of fabrics and buy them in large quantities (after all, we have made our main (and somewhat simple) selling point that we sell “pro quality kit at reasonable prices”) and second because we have tested all our fabrics to exhaustion out on the road and we know that what we are using is the very best in class and that it lasts.

We sometimes get asked by clients what care they need to give their custom cycling or triathlon kit to keep it in the best condition for the longest possible time and generally speaking the answer is not much. We use sublimation printing which means that a design is printed on to paper and then the dye is transferred on to the garment to colour the actual fabric. That is to say that the colours are not sitting on top of the fabric, but are actually absorbed and by using very high quality dyes it means that they will essentially never fade (other than bleaching in the sun after very long periods of use in sunny conditions). We also choose fabrics specifically for their longevity so that they do not get tatty or fall apart. Having said that there are a few things you can do to look after your kit better:

1. Never wash kit mixed with velcro – this is because velcro will pull threads from microfibre fabric in particular, which may expose uncoloured (white) threads that will show up against the printed fabric.
2. Don’t use fabric softener – as this can interfere with the the wicking and breathability of technical fabrics.
3. If you use triathlon clothing in a swimming pool, do not leave it too long before you wash it. Our triathlon fabrics are all chlorine resistant, but chlorine is a very aggressive chemical and will eventually damage the fabric.

And that’s it. You really DON’T need to follow the long list of things that many custom cycling clothing suppliers suggest, for example: washing cold, drip drying (rather than tumble drying), washing seperate from other clothing, turning inside out before washing, using mild detergents. Just treat it like you would normal sports kit and you will get years of use without any noticeable deterioration. Just don’t fall off your bike….

If your cycling or triathlon club has given you the job with coming up with a design for your new kit and you have sat down with a blank piece of paper to come up with something original that will keep everyone at the club happy, then help is at hand – here are some ideas that you may wish to consider.

1. Don’t start with a blank sheet of paper! Get some inspiration from somewhere else – it might be an old but much loved t-shirt, a painting you once saw in a gallery, a logo from a local coffee shop etc. Something you just like the look of – if you then don’t know how to transform this into a custom cycling jersey or tri-suit, then you can just send it to one of our designers and we will take your inspiration to come up with a few options for a design. We don’t charge extra for this service!
2. Don’t design by committee. In most clubs there will need to be an agreement on what is the final design for the club kit and typically at the beginning of the process of choosing a design there will be an agreement on some basic principles. When it comes to design your own cycling jersey though, it almost never works out well if several people are involved in the development of the actual design; let one person take over and then take a final design back for comments.
3. You don’t have to be a good designer to come up with a good design. We make hundreds of custom designs every year, so let us do the hard work. You just need to show us a few other designs from other clubs for example that you like the look of, send us the text and logos and perhaps an inspiration (see point 1) and let us do the rest. Or you can just send a basic pencil sketch with annotations and a few links for us to start work on – it is our job as a custom cycling clothing supplier produce a design and reiterate until you are happy.
4. Think about how the cycling kit or tri-suit will look when worn. Some designs can look great in 2D, but not so good when you actually wear it. A lot of this is to do with working with the panels that make up a garment, rather than against them: the panels will tend to naturally divide the garment into side views, front/back views and to separate the trunk from the limbs, whereas on a 2D design they all get presented together. You can use the panels to chop up your design into distinct sections that should work well standing on their own as well as functioning as a whole.
5. Text and logos need space to breathe. On those areas of the custom cycling or triathlon kit that you have logos or text, you really need to have a simple background both behind and surrounding them. In fact if you are going to have a lot of text/logos, you need to have a design that can support them. If you want to have some more intricate design elements, perhaps use them only on certain panels.

With Carvalho Custom, you will get to work directly with a graphic designer rather than going through an account manager so you can get design iterations produced in real time. Please contact us to get started on your custom kit design!

As a supplier of custom cycling clothing, the whole range has to start with the bib shorts – we know that if we don’t get the shorts right then we are never going to have happy customers. Cycling short technology has moved on a bit since the 1980s when this writer began cycling – then it was scratchy wool blend shorts, a real chamois leather (like you use for drying your car) which you had to grease with a special lubricant before every ride, no bibs and no leg grippers. Essentially tight woolen pants with a bit of leather in the crotch. Things have moved on a bit…..

There are really three areas that go into making truly great bib shorts: Shape/fit, the chamois and fabric choice. Here is what we have done with our latest EVO bib shorts in these areas:

The shape/fit of bib shorts is all about making them fit like a glove when the rider is actually riding a bike (i.e. bent forwards with legs pumping) rather than making the fit right when the rider is standing upright and trying the shorts on for the first time. So this mean that if you hold a decent pair of bib shorts by the top of the straps, you should see a natural curve in the way they hang and there should be some looseness in the straps and the back panels when standing upright that will be taken up when you bend forward. We have designed our panels to do precisely this so that the shorts give that relaxed but body hugging fit only when you are actually in the riding position. Then on top of this add our wide super-stretchy straps which won’t dig in to your shoulders and laser cut leg grippers that won’t cut into your legs and you get the perfect shape/fit for actually riding a bike for long periods of time.

Having a great chamois is all about taking away bulk wherever possible, but keeping as much cushioning as possible in the right places to minimise soft tissue pressure and maximise skeletal support. We keep the surface as soft and smooth as possible with no seams and a delicate interface fabric and we have added additional elasticity to make sure the chamois moves with the pedal stroke. Add to this anti-bacterial action to keep things as sweet smelling and healthy as possible and you have the perfect chamois.

Finally we have the fabric choice – we use four different fabrics to make our custom bib shorts – the most important is the least visible, which is for the inner thighs and seat. This fabric is so important because it is where all the friction occurs with the saddle and where sweat is most likely to build up, so we use an aerated, friction resistant and anti-microbial lycra that gives extraordinary durability to the shorts whilst keeping the rider as dry as possible. Then we have the lycra that we use for the main panels, which has to hold vibrant colours that we print on to our custom cycling clothing designs whilst avoiding any transparency and also a high level of elastane to make sure the lycra follows all the movements of the rider’s body shape throughout the pedal stroke as well as UV resistance. Then we have the straps that are made of a mesh that is highly breathable, soft and stretchy for thar barely there feel on the shoulders and the laser cut leg grippers which give a perfectly smooth transition to the leg ends of the shorts.

So whilst we cannot remove all the suffering from our beautiful sport, we are doing our very best to keep it to a minimum by at least keeping your backside comfortable….

Putting an order together for your cycling or triathlon club has to be the job that nobody wants – first of all you have to find a supplier that you and the club like, then you have to convince club members to buy the kit, then you have to process the order, sort out payments etc. In short it is a miracle that any cycling or triathlon club actually gets round to placing an order!

So we see it as our job to make the order process as simple as possible. So for example we have an excel order form in which you (the kit organiser) can input individual orders for them to be automatically consolidated into a single order (it is the “multiple orders” button on our order form.

Our order form will also automatically calculate any discounts you might be due – this value is based on the total order value rather than quantities. So if you order a minimum of €1500 you get a 5% discount, for €2500+ a 7% discount and for €5000+ a 10% discount. For us as a custom cycling & triathlon clothing supplier it is much more efficient to produce larger orders principally because of the set up time we need for the printing, so we think this is the fairest way to pass on these efficiencies to our clients.

Then we have the thorny issue of minimum orders – every custom cycling clothing supplier seems to have a different strategy and the truth is that the most logical way of managing minimum orders would be to insist on a minimum for each item produced because of the set up time that is required for each different garment that needs printing. We think that this just makes life too difficult for the cycling & triathlon clubs that we supply though, as it can be extremely difficult to ensure that a minimum of say 10 of each item is reached and it would be impossible to guarantee to club members which items would eventually be available (if some items could not be ordered were the minimum not reached).

We decided to make the simplest system we could and ask for at least 10 of any one item and then not apply minimums to anything else; so under our system you could order say 10 custom cycling jerseys (male), 3 female cycling jerseys, 5 bib shorts and 4 tri-suits. If a club does not meet these requirements then we charge 35% extra for all items. Our order form automatically applies this minimum order system (as well as calculating postage).

You can read more about how to order your custom cycling/triathlon kit here.

Whilst most cyclists like to go out for an enjoyable ride, enjoying the fresh air, the banter with fellow cyclists, maybe the exhileration of pushing the old legs a bit on a climb and of course a stop mid ride for some barely earnt sustenance, there is a more sinister side to cycling that the majority of right thinking cyclists are reluctant to discuss, much less take part in.

Yes that’s right, we are talking about time-trialing – how to strip out all the elements of cycling that make it enjoyable and leave behind just loneliness, misery and suffering. Whilst you may pity the time-trialist you cannot help buy admire the dedication it requires and as we all know, there is nobody more dedicated to the technical details about how to make themselves go faster than these masters of pain.

As a custom cycling clothing supplier, this can make our job rather difficult however, because the time-trialists is a uniquely demanding client: as well as want to shave a few gramms of weight off their brake pads and wearing absurd space-aged helmets, they will of course want their custom skinsuits to also make them go faster, so that is what we have had to do.

First of all we use a corrugated lycra that improves airflow over the body to reduce drage to a minimum and then we use the lightest but strongest fabrics to make the custom skinsuit weight a little less and make sure it sculpts the body exactly to stop any folding or flapping. And this for many of hurt-worshippers would be enough! But we have gone that extra step to actually make the thing as comfortable as possible (which may seem counter-intuitive give the whole point of time-trialing is to suffer). So this means we have also blended different lycras to give the maximum breathability possible, added laser cut silicone coated leg grippers that won’t dig in to the flesh and added a top of the range Cytech chamois. And with all these bells and whistles we still only charge €81.50!

So the best advice we can give to anyone who enjoys cycling is to think twice before considering going to the dark side and riding a timetrial. But if you really must do it, then at least maximise your speed and comfort by wearing Carvalho Custom….

When we started selling custom cycling & triathlon clothing in 2003 the internet was just taking off and there was just 3 or 4 brands selling into the northern European markets. In the UK for example the market was dominated by Impsport and Endura (who both manufactured in the UK) and when Carvalho Custom started selling to the UK (direct from Portugal) are prices were around 30 to 40% lower and we immediately gained a lot of traction.

We didn’t just want to compete on price however, so we decided to set up a discount system that rewarded larger orders because they are so much more efficient for us to manufacture; rather than negotiate a special deal for each cycling or triathlon club, we have always offered a bulk discount that would increase for larger order sizes:
€1500+ = 5%
€2500+ = 7%
€5000+ = 10%

We also decided that whilst we supply the Portuguese market with some non-premium fabrics, we would only supply our export markets with the very best quality garments possible; Given that costs of garment production in Portugal are less than 50% of those in northern Europe it meant we could focus on supplying premium quality at reasonable prices.

The focus on the premium end of the market made more sense when the Chinese joined the market (principally through the Chinese brand Champion Systems – now the largest custom cycling & triathlon brand on the planet), as they initially dominated the cheaper end of the market, although they now have increased their prices dramatically as they exercise their dominant position.

Meanwhile Carvalho Custom has kept plugging along at what we do best – selling direct from Portugal to avoid having to carry the extra 20 to 30% margin that a national distributor adds on to prices and focusing on top quality kit at fair prices. We have also avoided sponsoring teams and paying for advertising to keep costs out of the business.

We still believe that we are the best balance of quality and price selling into the northern European market – for example our carbon thread, short-sleeve, full-zip jersey still costs under €40 (plus VAT) and our triathlon speedsuit is under €95 (plus VAT). On top of that we charge a one off design fee of €150 that covers the entire range and our rule for minimums is that you just need to order at least 10 of any principal item then no minimums apply to the rest of the order (so you could order for example 10 jersey, 5 shorts and 3 tri suits). Then on top of all this you can have access to the discounts outlined above. See our full custom cycling & triathlon kit price list here

Please contact us for more information if you are are looking for a club cycling & triathlon clothing supplier.