Archive for category: Tips

Our industry of making custom cycling and triathlon kit has got a terrible reputation for delivering late. We have heard plenty of stories from clients coming to us about reputable British suppliers (and others!) supplying kit months late, which is frankly unacceptable.

So for 2011 we are going to offer a delivery guarantee on all our orders, because we do not miss our deadlines. The way we work is that once a design has been approved by a client we then give a date by which the kit will be dispatched. Outside of the peak season (May to July) this is generally 4 weeks, sometimes a week more, sometimes a week less, depending on how busy we are. In peak season it is generally 5 weeks, sometimes 6 (and very occasionally 7 if we are really pushed). Whatever the delivery time is at the time of the design being approved, we will stick to it and for every working day that we are late in dispatching the kit, we will give a 2% discount.

We have been growing our production capacity at approximately 35% a year for the last 3 years, because we have not been able to make enough kit to meet demand, but we refuse to offer this as an excuse for late delivery. It is time that our industry stopped making empty promises about delivery times and started putting its money where its mouth is!

In these times of economic gloom there is a bright side if you are buying our kit from the UK. The value of the euro has been tumbling in in recent months, from 1.05 to the pound to 1.20 at the moment – that means that for UK customers our prices are now 14% cheaper than they were!

Combine this with the fact that we work in a low cost economy, Portugal, selling directly to the UK and elsewhere from there. For example the minimum wage in Portugal is €475/£395 a month, but we pay our seamstresses around €700/£585 a month, as working with lycra requires highly skilled workers. That is still a lot less than a skilled seamstress receives in the UK however (around €1560/£1300 a month) and that, combined with the fact that we run a very lean business, is why our prices are so competitive.

The reason that our prices are not even lower than they are is because we use the very best fabrics available, which are extremely expensive for us to buy. The difference in price between a square metre of a basic microfibre and our new Bio-Cerâmica fabric is two to three times for example. We are commited to producing pro quality custom cycling kit and medium range prices, we we just have to bite the bullet on the cost of our raw materials.

We are never going to chase the cheap and cheerful end of the custom cycling and triathlon clothing market, because we think that anyone who takes their sport at all seriously wants to ride in the best quality kit possible. Our philosophy is just that you shouldn’t have to pay the earth to ride, swim or run in the same quality kit as the pros wear.

We are very proud to sponsor the kit of Mirjam Weerd, one of the leading long distance triathletes in Holland. One of the added bonuses of sponsoring Dutch atheletes is that most of them are extremely attractive and here is Mirjam looking great in our custom swimming costume.

If you order a personalised swimming costume from us, you can print on all the fabric with no limit to colours or logos and all in sublimation printing that will never peel or fade plus the lycra is chlorine resistant. There is also optional bra support.

Mirjam is off now to do the South Africa Ironman, so we wish her all the best in that!

You can probably imagine that as a supplier of custom cycling clothing we get a lot of requests for charity cycling kit and we do provide kit for some of the biggest charity cycling rides, such as Help for Heroes Band of Brothers Bike Ride. We are very happy to help out in one way or another, but we can’t just give away kit to everyone who contacts us. But we have a plan to help out anyone thinking of doing a charity bike ride….

You can help us to do some advertising and in return we will help with the cost of the kit. Most charity rides use our semi-custom cycling kit option, where you pay €90 for the design and can then order any item of cycling kit you like at our normal list prices (so €29.55+VAT for a jersey and €38.25+VAT for bib shorts for example, if you buy at least 10).

So the deal is, if you become a fan of our facebook page and write a message on our wall about the fact that you are going to do a charity ride and want to get some kit made, we will take one euro off the design fee for every different person who comments on your post to support your ride. So if you can get 90 people to sign up to be a fan of our page and then comment on your post, you get the design for fee and only pay for the kit you buy and the postage. The only conditions are that it has to be for a charity ride and you have to buy at least 5 jerseys.

We have some stock of Help for Heroes cycling jerseys priced at 15 euros + VAT each – please click here to buy online or contact us if you are interested.

What is the catch? No catch – you get money off your design fee and we get more people visiting our facebook page to see what we do.You can probably imagine that as a supplier of custom cycling clothing we get a lot of requests for charity cycling kit and we do provide kit for some of the biggest charity cycling rides, such as Help for Heroes Band of Brothers Bike Ride. We are very happy to help out in one way or another, but we can’t just give away kit to everyone who contacts us. But we have a plan to help out anyone thinking of doing a charity bike ride….

You can help us to do some advertising and in return we will help with the cost of the kit. Most charity rides use our semi-custom cycling kit option, where you pay €90 for the design and can then order any item of cycling kit you like at our normal list prices (so €29.55+VAT for a jersey and €38.25+VAT for bib shorts for example, if you buy at least 10).

So the deal is, if you become a fan of our facebook page and write a message on our wall about the fact that you are going to do a charity ride and want to get some kit made, we will take one euro off the design fee for every different person who comments on your post to support your ride. So if you can get 90 people to sign up to be a fan of our page and then comment on your post, you get the design for fee and only pay for the kit you buy and the postage. The only conditions are that it has to be for a charity ride and you have to buy at least 5 jerseys.

What is the catch? No catch – you get money off your design fee and we get more people visiting our facebook page to see what we do.

We have a few cyclists and triathletes round the world who we help out with custom kit in return for helping us to try out new fabrics and garments in race conditions. One of them is leading Dutch triathlete, Mirjam Weerd . It looks like she is going to have a fantastic 2010 season, so keep an eye open for her.

Well here is Mirjam going out to work this morning in full custom kit! One of the items she is trying out for us is our Drystorm winter cycling jacket, which we have recently improved to make it more stretchy for a comfortable fit, increasing the breathability by over 30% and adding a water repelant treatment to encourage water to bead of. It is a very warm jacket, as it has a microfibre insulation layer, as well as the breathable/waterproof/windproof membrane.

For the record Mirjam said the jacket kept her warm as toast! Best of luck to her this season.