March 2010 - Carvalho Custom

Semi custom tri suits & tri kit

Our semi custom cycling kit has been extremely popular, so we have now added a semi-custom tri kit option. This will allow you to design a semi-custom tri suit, added the colours, text and logo you require for just a €90 design fee. Our design system allows you to design tri kit based on the male tri suit template, but you can also order semi-custom female tri suits, tri shorts and tri tops (male and female) using the same design and included in the €90 fee. We will just adapt the tri suit design you make to the other items of kit you order.

semi-custom tri suit

At the moment we have just one template option for the semi-custom tri kit, but we will be adding more. If you would like to order both cycling and triathlon kit in the same semi-custom design, then the €90 design fee will be charged twice.

Gent-Wevelgem preview & predictions

With Gent-Wevelgem, another month packed with Belgian classics, comes to an end. After the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne earlier this year, the peloton will ride from Deinze (and not Gent) to Wevelgem on Sunday after the finish of the E3 Trophy in Harelbeke on Saturday.

gent_wevelgem profile and map

This new weekend is due to the changed status of Gent-Wevelgem, a race that used to be a midweek snack, but is now one of the major Pro Tour spring classics. With the change in status came a change in route as well. The organisation has added an extra loop in the ride, which means that a couple of hills will have to be climbed twice, including the famous cobbled Kemmelberg. In total, the riders will have to swallow 219 kilometres.

After beating Tom Boonen (winner of Gent-Wevelgem in 2004) by a comfortable margin in Milan-San Remo, Oscar Freire (winner in 2008) is hot favourite for the first position. He is not riding in Harelbelke on Saturday, in order to arrive at the start in Deinze in the best shape possible. Edvald Boasson Hagen, who won in Wevelgem last year, finished Milan-San Remo in the same group as Mark Cavendish, but in a race 80 k shorter than La Primavera, he is not to be completely ignored. Cavendish himself was heavily criticised by his teammate Andre Greipel after his poor performance in the first great classic of the year and is not likely to be first past the line this weekend either. If one man is able to avoid the race from ending in a mass sprint, it’s Belgian Phillipe Gilbert. Yet, if the sprinters play their cards right and the race ends with a sprint, our dark horse is Dutch former track world champion Theo Bos.

oscar freire

In Milan-San Remo, both 1st and 2nd place finishers were in the top of our Carvalho Custom Favourites list. Will our three names Freire, Boasson Hagen and Gilbert prove to be just as good this time?

Carvalho Custom Favourites:

*****
Freire (Spain)
****
Boasson Hagen (Norway), Gilbert (Belgium)
***
Flecha (Spain), Bos (Holland), Benatti (Italy)
**
Cancellara (Switzerland), Breschel (Denmark), Farrar (USA), Haussler (Germany)
*
Ballan (Italy), Hincapie (USA), Van Avermaet (Belgium), Davis (Australia), McEwen (Australia)

Written by Frank Tieskens, Breda’s leading cycling pundit

Milan-San Remo – race preview & predictions

What better way to start your spring than sitting in front of the telly for an entire afternoon? Because tomorrow, most of the world’s best riders will start in the first major cycling classic of the season: Milan-San Remo, La Primavera.

milan san remo profile

This epic race over almost 300 kilometers features a couple of small climbs, of which the final two, the Cipressa and the Poggio di Sanremo are the most famous. Classic specialists, such as Belgian Philippe Gilbert who won both Paris-Tours and the Tour of Lombardy last year, will try to open the race on those hills, while the teams featuring the strongest sprinters will do everything they can to keep the pack together.

Due to the sheer strength of most sprinters and their teams however, the race is bound to end in a mass sprint. 24 year old Manx cyclist Mark Cavendish, who won the race last year, did not appear to be as fit as usual at the recent Tirreno-Adriatico, so this time all eyes are on Belgium’s Tom Boonen.

tom-boonen

The Quickstep rider has yet to win his first Milan-San Remo, but he has impressed many comentators by winning his first mass sprint in a long time in the Tirreno-Adriatico. His endurance skills are beyond any doubt, which led 2002 winner Mario Cipollini to tip the Belgian as top favourite. Who are we to question Super Mario?

Other contenders include two times winner Oscar Freire, and former first place finishers Alessandro Petacchi (2005), Filippo Pozzato (2006) and Fabian Cancellara (2008). Seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong will also join the race, so prepare yourself for a wonderful day of world class cycling and let us know who you think is going to win it…

Carvalho Custom Favourites:

*****
Boonen (Belgium)
****
Freire (Spain), Boasson Hagen (Norway)
***
Cavendish (Great Britain), Hushovd (Norway), Pozzato (Italy)
**
Cancellara (Switzerland), Gilbert (Belgium), Petacchi (Italy), Farrar (USA)
*
O’Grady (Australia), Bennati (Italy), Davis (Australia), Garzelli (Italy), Hincapie (USA)

Written by Frank Tieskens

We are extremely busy!

This has been an unbelievable year for Carvalho Custom so far, for both triathlon and cycling kit. It is great to be selling kit to so many teams and it has really shown us that by making a lot of improvements to our range (in terms of a new cycling jersey fabric, improved breathability for waterproof membranes, more technical lycras, new cut for tri suits and so on) have really helped to bring in more clients – the message to us is that you want pro quality, but don’t want to pay ridiculously inflated prices for it.

With the amount of orders we have at the moment, we are having to deliver in 6 to 7 weeks, which is pretyy upsetting for us and for clients who want their kit, but we are already on 24 hour shifts and we still cannot meet demand, even though our capacity is up over 20% from last year. So I can only say sorry for those of you who would like their kit sooner, but we are delivering to deadline – it is just that the deadlines are not the 4 weeks we normally strive for at the moment.

Custom swimming costumes

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.

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!