Clothing Blog

Clothing Wear :Race Around Ireland – why not give it a go?

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:20:17 +0000

We are delighted to say that having sponsored the Race Around Ireland in 2011 we are signed up again for 2012 – amongst other things we will be providing custom cycling jerseys for all the riders (and the mascot – pictured below!).

The Race Around Ireland is a similar

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We are delighted to say that having sponsored the Race Around Ireland in 2011 we are signed up again for 2012 – amongst other things we will be providing custom cycling jerseys for all the riders (and the mascot – pictured below!).

The Race Around Ireland is a similar sort of race to the Race Across America, in that it is a non-stop endurance race (in this case about 2100 kms) and any time the riders spend sleeping is time lost in the race. Some certifiable riders do it on their own and finish in around 5 days, having slept for an hour or two each day, but most choose to do it as part of a team (2, 4 or 8 riders) riding in relays. So as one person rides, the others get to sleep and eat in the van. This year the race takes place on the 9th of September

Having been to the race last year, we can say that it is a fantastically well organised operation and we would love to support anyone who is interested in doing it. If you are a member of a club that is already supplied by Carvalho Custom, then we will be happy to supply you with a free pair of our new bib shorts in your club colours to do the race in (a good chance to see just how comfortable our new custom bib shorts are!). For anyone else wishing to do the race, we will make you some kit up using our semi-custom design system with no design fee.

If you you would like to find out more about the event then you can either contact us at Carvalho Custom, or speak directly to Alan (alan@racearoundireland.com) who is extremely helpful and generous with his time. Events like this are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to do something truly amazing and tick off one of the great cycling challenges in the world!

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Cheap Clothing :Abu Dhabi Custom Triathlon Kit

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:20:17 +0000

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

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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……!

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Clothing Online :Groningen Winter Triathlon

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:20:17 +0000

We have just got back from Groningen in the north of Holland, where we were sponsoring the latest race in the Dutch Winter Triathlon series. The Dutch like to do triathlon differently when it gets cold, so they do RUN-BIKE-SKATE (sprint distance is 5k run, 25k bike and 10k skate

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We have just got back from Groningen in the north of Holland, where we were sponsoring the latest race in the Dutch Winter Triathlon series. The Dutch like to do triathlon differently when it gets cold, so they do RUN-BIKE-SKATE (sprint distance is 5k run, 25k bike and 10k skate and the middle distance is 10k run, 50k bike and 20k skate).

Carvalho Custom sponsored the winners’ jerseys for the event, so Nicole from our office got the job of giving out medals, flowers and the jerseys to the podium girls and boys and of course brought a bit of glamour to the event!

Carvalho Custom is sponsoring the complete series, which is 5 events, the last of which takes place in Twente on the 24th of March. We really like to sponsor events like this as it is our way of giving something back to the sports that keep us in business and it is also a great opportunity to meet some of our clients, some of whom we only ever get to communicate by phone and email. Our heartfelt thanks to the organizers of the event in Groningen who made us feel very welcome and of course to the Dutch triathlon association, which has done so much to help make our sponsorship of the series worthwhile.

Wij zijn net terug uit Groningen waar wij de laatste race van de Nederlandse Winter Triathlon serie hebben gesponsord. Zodra het te koud wordt passen de Nederlanders de triathlon aan aan de omstandigheden: HARDLOPEN-FIETSEN-SCHAATSEN (korte afstand is 5km hardlopen, 25 km fietsen en 10 km schaatsen, middel afstand is 10 km hardlopen, 50 km fietsen en 20 km schaatsen).

Daar Carvalho Custom de sponsor was van de winnaars shirts, kreeg Nicole van ons kantoor de eer de medailles, de bloemen en de shirts aan de winnaars op het podium te overhandigen wat zij natuurlijk met veel stijl en glamour deed.

Carvalho Custom sponsort de hele serie d.w.z. 5 evenementen. De laatste vindt plaats op 24 maart a.s. in Twente.
Wij sponsoren dergelijke evenementen graag want het is onze manier om iets terug te doen voor de sportwereld, die ons bedrijf staande houdt. Het is ook een goede gelegenheid om enkele van onze klanten persoonlijk te ontmoeten met wie wij anders alleen telefonisch of e-mail contact hebben.

Onze hartelijke dank aan de organizatoren van het evenement in Groningen, die ons zo welkom hebben gemaakt en natuurlijk aan de Nederlandse Triathlon Associatie die zoveel gedaan heeft om ons het sponsoren van de serie de moeite waard te maken.

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Shopping Clothing :Cycling in Switzerland

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:20:16 +0000

Charlie has just spent a week cycling in the Swiss Alps with his older and slightly slower brother. It was great whipping his backside up a few cols and of course we wore Carvalho Custom kit.

Having spent so much work on developing our new custom cycling shorts, it was fantastic

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Charlie has just spent a week cycling in the Swiss Alps with his older and slightly slower brother. It was great whipping his backside up a few cols and of course we wore Carvalho Custom kit.

Having spent so much work on developing our new custom cycling shorts, it was fantastic to have a chance to wear them in the big mountains – we are really proud that we have made some bib shorts that we feel will compare favourably with anything available in the market. You can see on the photo below that they incorporate lycra leg grippers rather than silicone, so that they grip your leg gently rather than pinching.

Anyway, if you have got any photos wearing our kit on a big mountain somewhere, please send them in. And if you haven’t tried our new bib shorts out yet, you really need to give them a go (and please note we have just produced our first prototype of new female bib shorts)!

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Clothing Wear :Custom cycling & triathlon kit suppliers

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:20:16 +0000

It used to be a simple business finding a supplier for your custom cycling or triathlon kit. You just had to find the manufacturer who made custom kit not too far away from you, give them a call and then send them a cheque. But now the choices are just endless, so where are all [...]

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It used to be a simple business finding a supplier for your custom cycling or triathlon kit. You just had to find the manufacturer who made custom kit not too far away from you, give them a call and then send them a cheque. But now the choices are just endless, so where are all these suppliers coming from? Well there are essentially 4 business models selling kit to Northern Europe:

1. Domestic manufacturers – increasingly few and far between, because it is just so expensive to produce clothing in northern Europe these days.

2. Local distributors selling kit made in Southern Europe – this has become more popular in recent years, but it does have the problem that you effectively have to buy from an agent, so you don’t get to deal directly with the factory and of course the distributor takes their 30% cut, which gets stuck on top of the price of the kit.

3. Buy direct from the Far East – generally this business model uses local agents to sell, but not always. The major problem with this is that air freighting the kit is just so expensive and also if there are any problems with the final product it can be very difficult to put right, dealing with such far away countries.

4. Buy direct from Southern Europe – here you get the benefit of low prices, but of course you do not have a local distributor who you can go and speak to, which is important to some customers.

At Carvalho Custom we work on the 4th option of course and we have worked extremely hard to give prospective clients the confidence to buy from us, even though we do not have a representative based in their country. We have been exporting from Portugal for 7 years and over that period we have grown steadily to become the leading supplier of club triathlon kit to the UK and Irish combined markets and one of the top club cycling kit suppliers to these markets, so that gives us a good deal of credibility. We also make regular trips abroad to sponsor races and appear at trade shows and similar so that we get a chance to meet our customers and we send our free samples to anyone who is interested in seeing our kit (we only ask that they get returned within two weeks). Finally, as far as we know, we are the only supplier in our industry that offers a 2% discount for every day that we deliver late after our stated deadline and this can give our clients some confidence that we are a serious supplier who sticks to their promises.

We get asked regularly by sports companies in Northern Europe if they can become a distributor for us, but we know that if we did that, then we would have to increase our retail prices by 30% or so to allow the distributor to make some money – then we would be the same price as other premium custom kit suppliers, which is why we only sell direct from Portugal. (In fact we have also been contacted by several of our main competitors who currently make kit in Northern Europe, but know that it is no longer economically viable and want us to make their kit for them – we only produce kit with our branding however, so the answer is always no!).

At Carvalho Custom we have a simple business model – we believe that by being an honest and reliable supplier, who above all believes in the quality of the kit we produce rather than marketing or hype that we will continue to grow and serve our customers, wherever they may be in the world.

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Shopping Clothing :Hipster female tri shorts

admin — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 03:20:16 +0000

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,

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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.

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Shopping Clothing :Some more photos of our custom tri & cycling kit

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:44:36 +0000

You can see some more photos of our custom cycling and triathlon kit on our facebook page.

They are some really fantastic photos taken by Joana Maltez and Margarida Ramos. The girls did a fantastic job for us – have a look for yourself and let us know what you think.

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You can see some more photos of our custom cycling and triathlon kit on our facebook page.

They are some really fantastic photos taken by Joana Maltez and Margarida Ramos. The girls did a fantastic job for us – have a look for yourself and let us know what you think.

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Cool Clothing :Teflon treated lycra for our custom tri kit

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:44:36 +0000

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,

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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.

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.

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Cool Clothing :“Making of” video for our custom cycling & triathlon kit photo shoot

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:44:36 +0000

It is a lot of work organising a photo shoot and we were lucky enough to have Tiago Santos around to record some of the work we did.

On the video you can see our custom tri suits, custom swimming costumes, custom cycling jerseys, custom running kit and even Charlie wearing a Carvalho

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It is a lot of work organising a photo shoot and we were lucky enough to have Tiago Santos around to record some of the work we did.

On the video you can see our custom tri suits, custom swimming costumes, custom cycling jerseys, custom running kit and even Charlie wearing a Carvalho Custom polo shirt! thanks to Tiago for putting together such a great video.

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Cool Clothing :New custom cycling bib shorts

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:44:35 +0000

We have developed some new cycling bib-shorts to give an even more comfortable fit. The cut of the panels have been altered to ensure that the lycra is less stretched round the waist when you are in the cycling position, whilst maintaining compression on the legs to help soothe those

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We have developed some new cycling bib-shorts to give an even more comfortable fit. The cut of the panels have been altered to ensure that the lycra is less stretched round the waist when you are in the cycling position, whilst maintaining compression on the legs to help soothe those aching quads. We have also added the option to have lycra-band leg grippers rather than silicone so that the grip itself is less constricting on the muscle.

The shorts incorporate a side panel that swishes round the front of the leg and a separate back panel to link the two side panels, rather than having a continuous ‘U’ panel running down the legs and over the backside. It is an unbelievable amount of work to design, test and then redesign a garment as complex as cycling shorts, but we think that we have now developed the most comfortable ergonomically designed cycling shorts available on the market!

We have maintained our carbon mesh chamois, because we think it is the most comfortable chamois available on the market, as it uses fabric mesh rather than foam, which will not absorb moisture (to avoid the ‘nappy’ feel in the wet) and uses carbon threads to help dissipate the heat, as well as being completely antibacterial and anatomically cut.

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