We have just supplied Help for Heroes for the third year with custom cycling jerseys for their Battlefield ride round northern France.

You can find out more about this ride here. The Help for Heroes charity is an extraordinary organisation that raises money to help injured soldiers. The popularity of the organisation is testament to the heartfelt support that the British people have for their soldiers and we are very proud to supply their cycling kit.

We supply a lot of cycling clothing for charity rides and we do our best to help out, so if you need some custom cycling kit, you can get some semi-custom cycling clothing made up with no design fee if you take up our facebook offer. Click the link above or go to our Carvalho Custom Cycling & Triathlon facebook page.

On Saturday, the 93rd Tour of Italy (Giro d’Italia) will start in, of all places, Amsterdam. Luckily, your reporter is based in the Dutch capital, where he has an ideal position to monitor the preparations of the riders closely. This year’s Giro is planned in such a way, that the race will probably be decided in the last three stages, as the 19th and the 20th stage are the most mountainous of the complete race and the final stage is a short time trial in Verona. Be sure to cancel all your appointments on May 28th, 29th and 30th, because if you have half a cycling fan’s heart, you will be watching Eurosport on the edge of your seat. Among other difficult climbs, the infamous Gavia is on the menu on saturday the 29th.

Other highlights include an uphill finish on Mount Terminillo (May 16th), a mountain individual time trial (May 25th) and three stages on Dutch territory (this weekend, but no mountains here!). On top of that, two great champions of the past are honoured by special finishing locations. Stage 13 ends in Cesenatico (home of Marco Pantani) while stage 5 takes the riders to Novi Ligure, where the Fausto Coppi memorial museum is located.

Last year’s winner Denis Menchov is focusing on the Tour de France this time, and will not appear at the start in Amsterdam. Therefore, world champion Cadel Evans is top favourite for finishing in Verona wearing the pink jersey of the general classification (and of the leading Italian sports paper La Gazetta dello Sport). Evans has demonstrated in the Spring classics that he is in top shape, and is determined on adding the second most important cycling race of the year to his record. He doesn’t really have a change of gear, which doesn’t make him one of the most exciting riders and is politely referred to as having a diesel engine.

There are some tough competitors out there, however. Britain’s Bradley Wiggins is definetely among them, as he made clear that he does not consider this Giro to be merely a preparation for the Tour de France. Liège-Bastogne-Liège winner Alexander Vinokourov is also among the contenders for a high classification, as is 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre.

How about the Italians, then? From 1997 to 2007, the Giro had an Italian winner, but the last two editions were won by foreigners. 2006 winner Ivan Basso has returned to defend the red, white and green, after he was suspended for two years, Former enemies Gilberto Simoni (winner 2001 and 2003) and Damiano Cunego (winner in 2004) are reunited in team Lampre. Will they work together as a team? Good old Stefano Garzelli (winner in 2000) will also represent Italy, as will Vincenzo Nibali, Marzio Bruseghin, (3rd in 2008) Domenico Pozzovivo and Michele Scarponi.

Carvalho Custom Favourites:

*****
Evans (Australia)
****
Wiggins (Great Britain), Sastre (Spain)
***
Basso (Italy), Cunego (Italy), Nibali (Italy)
**
Simoni (Italy), Pozzovivo (Italy), Vinokourov (Kazachstan), Vandevelde (USA)
*
Garzelli (Italy), Bruseghin (Italy), Scarponi (Italy), Karpets (Russia), Mollema (Holland)

Written by Carvalho Custom’s Dutch correspondent, Frank Tieskens

We have been working with Henry Furniss from Wyndy Milla for a several years now, from when he was an elite rider at the Bike and Run team to now, where he runs his own cycling hub (shop, bike fitting and cycling club near Farnham in Surrey). Here is Nasima looking particularly hot in our tri top and bib shorts:

We have made a lot of kit for them over the years and they currently have versions of our kit in pink, blue, black and white (just to make sure that everyone can find something they like). We owe a lot to Henry and Nasima because over the years they have tested custom kit out for us and helped us to develop our range. Anyway, check out their new look website – www.wyndymilla.com – to find out more!

An unbelievable race by Mirjam Weerd, one of the triathletes whose clothing we sponsor, to come 4th in Ironman South Africa.

Here she is crossing the finish line looking fresh as a daisy wearing our female tri top and tri shorts and you can see some more photos here. We are very proud to be associated with her and we look forward to seeing some more fantastic results to get Carvalho Custom kit on the podium!

We have sponsored tri kit for Mirjam Weerd, a pro triathlete from the Netherlands and she is racing the South Africa Ironman this weekend (on Sunday).

Here she is receiving a prize for a 25k warm up race she did a few days before, of course wearing one of our faboulous custom technical t-shirts! As with a lot of our products, our microfibre technical t-shirts are not cheap at €23.25, but that is because we use top of the range microfibre to make them and there is an enormous difference in terms of performance from one microfibre to the next. What is most important in a technical t-shirt is the wicking capacity, the silkiness (so that you can hardly feel you are wearing it) and the stretch in the fabric so that you don’t have to wear it baggy (and show off your rippling torso of course!). Our mission as a company is to provide pro quality at accessible prices, so we do not apologise if our prices are not the cheapest in Europe, even though we make the kit in one of the lowest cost countries in Europe (Portugal) and sell direct to customers without using national distributors to keep costs down.

Anyway, best of luck Mirjam on Sunday and enjoy the race….

This Sunday, probably the most important classic of the year, the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) takes place in the Western part of Belgium. What makes this race special is its unique combination of cobbled sections, hills and cobbled hills. The riders will have to ride 262 kilometres from Bruges to Ninove, including famous hills like the Oude Kwaremont, Steenbeekdries and Eikenberg. The final two hills, Muur van Geraardsbergen (‘the Wall’) and Bosberg are likely to be decisive.

Although the last two editions were won by Stijn Devolder, his teammate Tom Boonen (winner in 2005 and 2006) is top favourite to win. Boonen has demonstrated that he is in a good shape and for him, as well as for a lot of Belgian riders, the Ronde van Vlaanderen is the most important race of the year. Swiss Fabian Cancellara, renown cobble specialist, has developed his climbing skills over the years, and is also considered a favourite, as well as Italian Alessandro Ballan (winner in 2007).

The beauty of the Ronde van Vlaanderen is that the shape of the race is difficult to predict, since each year something else happens. One day a rider wins after a long 40k solo, on another day a sprint of five decides the winner. The only guarantuee is of a spectacular race.

Can you beat the power of the Carvalho Custom predictions? Let us know!

Carvalho Custom Favourites:

*****
Boonen (Belgium)
****
Ballan (Italy), Cancellara (Switzerland)
***
Devolder (Belgium), Pozzato (Italy), Flecha (Spain)
**
Hoste (Belgium), Gasparotto (Italy), Nuyens (Belgium), Gilbert (Belgium)
*
Langeveld (Holland), Hincapie (USA), Armstrong (USA), Breschel (Denmark), Eisel (Austria)

By Frank Tieskens

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.

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.