custom triathlon clothing Archives

Thanks to everyone at the London Triathlon

We have just got back from exhibiting at the Virgin Triathlon and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to come and visit our stand. Being based in Portugal, we only rarely get to meet our clients and it was just so gratifying to see so many people racing in our club tri suits and to meet up with some of them.

Here is Marta from Carvalho Custom looking after the stand – she had to keep smiling like that from 8 in the morning to 7 in the evening, Saturday and Sunday, so she is going to be looking miserable all week to let her face recover….

Headwaters Tri Club Minnesota looking fantastic in their custom tri kit

We made some kit up for the Headwaters Triathlon Club, based in Bemidji, Minnesota and they were kind enough to send us some photos of their club members looking stunning in their Carvalho Custom kit:

They are an extremely friendly club, catering for the complete spectrum of triathlon abilities from beginners who are not really sure if they want to get involved in the sport to proper full-on triathlon junkies. It has been a real pleasure to work with them on their order and I have to say that they really nailed their design.

There was an inspirational story on their blog by David Lewis and his journey to finishing his first Ironman. In true triathlete style he tells you a story of the gut-wrenching suffering of getting to the finishing line and ends with “LOVE IT. Can’t wait until the next one.” Here is he crossing the line and congratulations for getting there from all of the team at Carvalho Custom.

We are always very happy to feature stories from our custom cycling & triathlon clothing clients on our blog, so please get in touch if you have any club news that you would like us to feature!

Hipster female tri shorts

We are in the business of constantly updating our range and here is the latest. Our new custom hipster female tri shorts are lower cut than standard triathlon shorts (more like a hipster cut) and they have a wide elastic support band round the top that will not cut into your tummy, making them extremely comfortable. As well as the practical aspects to the shorts, they also look fantastic and more feminine than higher cut tri shorts – after all there is no reason why you shouldn’t look your best when you are training/racing in your club colours.

Anyway, the low cut ladies triathlon shorts also incorporate teflon treated Power Lycra so that they are super-quick to dry and offer compression to help soothe your aching limbs.

Abu Dhabi Custom Triathlon Kit

We sell custom cycling and triathlon kit all over the world, although Europe accounts for over 80% of our sales. There is not frankly speaking a massive triathlon market in the Middle East, but the Abu Dhabi Triathlon Club is trying to put that right. Here they are looking very nicely tanned for early March in Carvalho Custom cycling and triathlon clothing

They have just taken delivery of triathlon and cycling kit for the 2012 season and if you are from that part of the world, you should get in touch with them, as they are an extremely friendly bunch and welcome triathletes of all abilities and of course they have some fantastic looking race and training clothing that you will get to wear……!

Teflon treated lycra for our custom tri kit

The world of sports fabrics is evolving at an incredible pace and some of the advances in recent years have really added dramatically to the performance of clothing to improve the comfort and speed of the athlete. We have made it our mission to source the very best fabrics available, so that we can offer our clients the most technically advanced performance kit around.

The latest fabric we have added to our specification list is Teflon treated lycra for our triathlon range: we already use the most technically advanced performance lycra so far developed (Power Lycra) and now we are adding Teflon treatment. As well as reducing the drag coefficient to help you to glide through the water, the Teflon is also hydrophobic, which means it repels water and causes it to bead, making the lycra super-fast drying. This of course means that in a tri race, you will dry off on the bike much faster, making for a more comfortable ride.

custom tri suits

The focus of Carvalho Custom is to provide premium technical race kit at reasonable prices – because we are based in Portugal, we can keep our costs down compared to say northern European countries, but on the other hand we have no interest in competing with the cheap and cheerful custom cycling and triathlon kit that is now starting to come out of China.

Per Wangel Swedish Triathlon Sprint Champion

We are very proud to supply some of Europe’s leading triathletes with their race and training kit and one of them, Per Wangel, has just become Swedish Triathlon sprint champion.

swedish tri sprint champion tri suit

Here he is wearing his Carvalho Custom tri suit on the top step of the podium. For elite athletes like Per we generally make the tri suits with a tighter fit across the abs, to reflect the build of these top athletes. Also in Per’s case, we had to make the tri suit longer in the torso as he is so tall, so if you are a client who has some specific requirements for a tri suit fit, then generally we can accomodate them.

Anyway, congratulations to Per and best of luck for the rest of the season.

Pamplona Capital Management custom tri kit

We make lots of custom cycling and triathlon kit for corporate teams from the financial sector – the big cheeses who circulate money round the global financial system also seem to be very competitive when they get their hands on a bike! Over the last year or so we have supplied among others, HSBC, ING, I-Shares, ICAP, Deloittes and Pamplona Capital Mangament (picture below).

custom ladies tri suit

The Pamplona Capital Management team seem to get around the triathlon race circuit a bit and judging by the photos they are in pretty good shape so there has to be a suspicion that (perish the thought) some of them might prefer to be out training than sitting behind their desks making squillions. [Note to Pamplona Capital Management CEO – your staff come up with all their best ideas when they are out training in the fresh air, so perhaps you should make triathlon compulsory for all your employees?].

Wight Tri custom tri kit

We were very pleased to supply Wight Tri with kit this year, which they designed using our semi-custom tri kit option (as you can see in the photo they have semi-custom tri and cycling kit).

wight tri semi custom tri kit

They have been a pleasure to work with and anyone who lives on the Isle of Wight and is thinking about getting involved with triathlon needs to get involved with a club whose motto is “The body is bad and must be punished” as well as organising the regular “splash and dash” events (don’t ask, they do things differently on the Isle of Wight).

We are very proud to say that we are now one of the largest supplier of club tri kit to the combined Irish and UK markets, supplying over 100 triathlon clubs in these countries. It has been a lot of hard work and the biggest lesson for us is that for triathletes product quality is absolutely everything. When we first started selling tri kit a few years ago, we did not have the cut of our kit quite right and we did not invest enough in the top drawer fabrics, but we found that triathletes just wanted the best. So we redeveloped our range and we have had a lot of success with it, although unfortunately for us, there is no time to rest on our laurels as tri clothing technology is just moving on so fast, we are constantly having to reassess things.

SBDN Davilex Triatlonteam kit

We have just supplied Holland’s top triathlon team, SBDN Davilex Triatlonteam with new kit. They have racing for them many of Holland’s top triathletes, including Mirjam Weerd, pictured here winning the Amsterdam Olympic distance triathlon on 13th of July, wearing our custom female tri suit.

mirjam female custom tri suit

I can’t quite believe she is smiling for the camera, given the amount of pain she should be in. Anyway, best of luck for the whole team this season.

triathlon team kit

Wheelworx Dublin open new store

Wheelworx Bike and Tri Store in Dublin have moved premises to a new store (on the Fonthill Retail Park in Liffey Valley) 12 times (!) the size of the old one in Clondalkin. That must make it just about the largest and best equiped tri and cycling store in Ireland. We have been supplying the Wheelworx shop and pro racing team with kit for years now and they have been good enough to feature one of our tri suits on their new store front!

wheelworx bike and tri store

Rob Cummins at Wheelworx is a top man who is totally passionate about his sport and you can be confident that the highly professional advice that came with staffing his shop with people who really live cycling and triathlon will be continued at the new premises. Tri and cycling kit is getting pretty confusing these days and it is just such a good idea to buy from someone who will give you honest and meaningful advice and who will give you the kind of after sales service that can be missing when you buy from non-specialist outlets.

We would just like to wish the new store and the Wheelworx race team a great 2010!