Life

Kars Eijsink is one of Holland’s leading young triathletes and we are very proud to sponsor his training and race triathlon kit as well as help him out with some of his expenses. At Carvalho Custom we appreciate that it is very difficult for young triathletes to have access to sponsorship opportunities, which can make it very difficult for them to compete internationally. Kars is an exceptional triathlete and extremely professional in his approach to racing and training, which is why we decided to support him. If you are a young triathlete and think you deserve our support, please get in touch with us at Carvalho Custom as we may be interested in helping out as we really believe in paying something back into the sport that we make a living from.

Here is Kars pictured winning the Ommen cross-country race (wearing our custom athletics vest!) as part of his build up to the triathlon season and his first race in Antalya, Turkey. Kars has a very special relationship with his coach, Job Eijsink, who happens to be his older brother! Job is also a leading triathlete, now competing at Ironman distance, but he says that his little brother is the real deal, with ambitions of becoming a leading professional in years to come. Job’s training philosophy is all about not over-racing and building Kars training slowly over the years so that he does not peak to soon and burn out. So keep your eyes open for the name Kars Eijsink in the years to come.

For a real triathlete, winning is everything….

We are nearly at the end of the series of films about the ridiculous life of triathletes. Here is lunchtime:

Here is our fourth film, “You Can Always Dream”, featuring some fine acting by Nicole Martins (among others).

Here is the trip to work, triathlon style:

Here is the second in our series of 6 films about the complex life of a triathlete:

We have recently produced a series of 6 films about just how seriously triathletes take their sports. Triathlon widows/widowers will probably find them familiar…
Here is the first one:

Carvalho Custom has been sponsoring the Race Around Ireland for the last 2 years and they have just announced their start date for 2013, which is 15th of September. Their standard route is 2100 kms non-stop racing round Ireland, for solo riders or teams of 2, 4 or 8. For the solo riders that is clearly a super-human challenge and there are not many people on the planet able to do it, so for 2013 they are going to have a half-distance option so that more riders can give it a go.

If you are interested in epic bike challenges, they you should certainly consider giving the Race Around Ireland a go – it is fantastically well organised, with a unique race atmosphere and you get to see one of the world’s most beautiful countries on the way round. Here is a flavour of the race from 2012.

We supplied custom cycling jerseys for all the competitors – when you have been sitting on bike for 5 days with virtually no sleep and 2000 kms in your legs, getting a free jersey must seem like scant reward, but nobody is into endurance bike racing for the prizes. But what the hell are they in it for? Strange, strange people….

We have just come back from the Swedish cycling show (Svenska Sportmässan) in Jönköping; we were lucky enough to have one of Sweden’s top triathletes, Joel Vikner helping out at our stand. It was a real privilege to spend a couple of days with Joel, because as well as being an all-round super nice guy, he also had a good line in training stories that could make your ears bleed, when you realise just what it takes to get to the top of the sport. He told me that he had done a ‘hard’ early morning at the pool a while back, which was 10 sets of 1500m, each set starting at 20 minute intervals. And then going to University for a day of lectures. Ouch!

Anyway, Sweden was a great country to spend some time in: scarily efficient and well-run and just generally deeply civilised. It is great news for out company that we are starting to get stream of business from Swedish cycling and triathlon clubs and a lot of the people we spoke to at the show were very receptive to the idea of buying from us direct from Portugal. We continue to sponsor Sweden’s top male triathlete, Per Wangel, which shows our commitment to growing our brand in Sweden and we hope to be out in Sweden again in 2013 to have a presence at one of the major triathlon events.

Joel was also good enough to share some of his thoughts on triathlon at a talk at the show, pictured above. I couldn’t understand a word he was saying, but he was no doubt terrifying his audience with stories from his training regime. Thanks so much to him for helping us out and we really look forward to going back to Sweden as soon as possible!

We had a great weekend in Trim, Ireland for the start of the Race Around Ireland, which Carvalho Custom has been very proud to sponsor. Picture below are the 13 solo racers in their Carvalho Custom jerseys, most of them looking pretty grim-faced (they are about to ride 2200kms non-stop, so who can blame them).

The first day of racing, it was wet. Very wet:

Nicole managed to shelter from the worst of the weather and keep smiling:

And here is the second day of racing. Most of the riders have had less than an hour of sleep by this time….

You can follow the race live at www.racearoundireland.com