Tips

Carvalho Custom werkt samen met Cofides, de belangrijkste producent in Portugal van wielershirts en triatlonpakken naar eigen ontwerp. Wij zorgen ervoor dat onze klanten van over de hele wereld gebruik kunnen maken van kleding van topkwaliteit, met designs die exact voldoen aan hun specifieke wensen. Bovendien bezorgen wij de kleding binnen een maand.

Op dit moment voorzien wij diverse professionele wielerploegen in Portugal van hun tenue, naast een aantal grote clubs in andere landen, terwijl onze prijzen tot 40% lager zijn dan in de rest van Europa. Dit komt omdat wij direct vanuit Portugal bezorgen en niet via dure distributienetwerken opereren. In het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Ierland voorzien wij meer dan 200 winkels en verenigingen van wieler- en triathlonkleding, in Nederland dragen onder anderen de toptriatleten van SBDN-Davilex onze triatlonkleding naar eigen ontwerp, net als de leden van Vahalis. Ook zijn we er trots op toptrialtlete Mirjam Weerd te sponsoren, hier draagt ze onze zelf ontworpen triatlonkleren tijdens de Ironman in Zuid-Afrika, waar ze als vierde eindigde. Wij maken gebruik van full sublimation printing en zorgen ervoor dat uw wielerkleding en triathlonkleding met eigen design er precies zo uitziet als u wilt en gemaakt is van het beste materiaal.

Voor uw design betaalt u de eenmalige opstartprijs van €235 – u kunt zoveel kleuren in uw ontwerp gebruiken als u wilt, zonder extra kosten. Uiteraard kunnen wij ook een ontwerp baseren op uw eigen schetsen of bestaande designs kopieëren. Op onze website kunt u via onze fietsshirt online design tool uw eigen wielertenue ontwerpen, net als andere wieler- en triatlonkleding.

Het minimum aantal exemplaren voor een item met een bepaald design is 10 (verschillende maten zijn natuurlijk mogelijk); als u 5 tot en met 9 exemplaren van een bepaald item (bijvoorbeeld fietsshirts) bestelt, betaalt u 20% extra, als u minder dan 5 exemplaren van een item bestelt, betaalt u 50% extra. Bezorging vindt plaats binnen vier weken nadat u het ontwerp heeft goedgekeurd plus de tijd die het verschepen kost. De bezorgkosten zijn rond de €1,- per item voor aangetekende bezorging in 3 tot 5 dagen – wij rekenen u de exacte kostprijs.

De prijzen zijn exclusief BTW (21%). Als uw bedrijf, club of vereniging bij de Kamer van Koophandel is geregistreerd, hoeft u die niet te betalen, aangezien de kleding vanuit Portugal wordt geëxporteerd.

Wij produceren ook specifieke dameskleding voor wielrennen en triatlon naar uw eigen ontwerp en kunnen bovendien aan al uw specifieke wensen wat betreft pasvorm voldoen. Laat het ons weten als u nog meer informatie nodig heeft en wij horen het graag als u een aantal voorbeelden wilt zien.

Als u nog vragen heeft, neemt u dan alstublieft contact op met Nicole. Haar e-mailadres is nicole@carvalhocustom.com

In these times of economic gloom there is a bright side if you are buying our kit from the UK. The value of the euro has been tumbling in in recent months, from 1.05 to the pound to 1.20 at the moment – that means that for UK customers our prices are now 14% cheaper than they were!

Combine this with the fact that we work in a low cost economy, Portugal, selling directly to the UK and elsewhere from there. For example the minimum wage in Portugal is €475/£395 a month, but we pay our seamstresses around €700/£585 a month, as working with lycra requires highly skilled workers. That is still a lot less than a skilled seamstress receives in the UK however (around €1560/£1300 a month) and that, combined with the fact that we run a very lean business, is why our prices are so competitive.

The reason that our prices are not even lower than they are is because we use the very best fabrics available, which are extremely expensive for us to buy. The difference in price between a square metre of a basic microfibre and our new Bio-Cerâmica fabric is two to three times for example. We are commited to producing pro quality custom cycling kit and medium range prices, we we just have to bite the bullet on the cost of our raw materials.

We are never going to chase the cheap and cheerful end of the custom cycling and triathlon clothing market, because we think that anyone who takes their sport at all seriously wants to ride in the best quality kit possible. Our philosophy is just that you shouldn’t have to pay the earth to ride, swim or run in the same quality kit as the pros wear.

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.

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.

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!

You can probably imagine that as a supplier of custom cycling clothing we get a lot of requests for charity cycling kit and we do provide kit for some of the biggest charity cycling rides, such as Help for Heroes Band of Brothers Bike Ride. We are very happy to help out in one way or another, but we can’t just give away kit to everyone who contacts us. But we have a plan to help out anyone thinking of doing a charity bike ride….

You can help us to do some advertising and in return we will help with the cost of the kit. Most charity rides use our semi-custom cycling kit option, where you pay €90 for the design and can then order any item of cycling kit you like at our normal list prices (so €29.55+VAT for a jersey and €38.25+VAT for bib shorts for example, if you buy at least 10).

So the deal is, if you become a fan of our facebook page and write a message on our wall about the fact that you are going to do a charity ride and want to get some kit made, we will take one euro off the design fee for every different person who comments on your post to support your ride. So if you can get 90 people to sign up to be a fan of our page and then comment on your post, you get the design for fee and only pay for the kit you buy and the postage. The only conditions are that it has to be for a charity ride and you have to buy at least 5 jerseys.

What is the catch? No catch – you get money off your design fee and we get more people visiting our facebook page to see what we do.

You have to pity anyone who doesn’t understand the joy of spending a Saturday afternoon in front of the telly watching the last 100k of one of the Classics or the extra spring in your step you have in July knowing that for 3 weeks you will have the Tour de France to bring light to your life.

Anyway here are the races you simply cannot miss this year under any circumstances. You can watch most of them on Eurosport if you are prepared to part with 4 quid (5 euros) a month (if you don’t have it on you normal television). The UPT races are Pro Tour and the HIS races ‘Historic’.

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!

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!

Jaakko is a triathlete from Finland attempting to break into the disturbing world of elite triathlon. We are very proud to sponsor his custom cycling and triathlon kit for racing and training and this is a podcast with him about what it is like training for Ironman and also just how bad he feels with 25kms to go on the run.

Find out more about Jaakko at his blog. Best of luck this season Jaakko!

We have a Carvalho Custom facebook page, but it is a little neglected! So we have decided to do a special offer for those ordering from us. We will give you a free cycling jersey in our new Bio-Cerâmica fabric and all you have to do is:
1. Place an order with us for some kit
2. Become a facebook fan
3. Post on our wall to say that you have ordered from us
4. Change your status to say your club has just ordered from us and include a link to our facebook page
5. Tell us that you have done the above and tell us what size jersey you require.

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Don’t try and tell me that this is not a great looking jersey! You will be the envy of everyone you ride with and it is worth €35/£30.

We have a few cyclists and triathletes round the world who we help out with custom kit in return for helping us to try out new fabrics and garments in race conditions. One of them is leading Dutch triathlete, Mirjam Weerd . It looks like she is going to have a fantastic 2010 season, so keep an eye open for her.

Well here is Mirjam going out to work this morning in full custom kit! One of the items she is trying out for us is our Drystorm winter cycling jacket, which we have recently improved to make it more stretchy for a comfortable fit, increasing the breathability by over 30% and adding a water repelant treatment to encourage water to bead of. It is a very warm jacket, as it has a microfibre insulation layer, as well as the breathable/waterproof/windproof membrane.

For the record Mirjam said the jacket kept her warm as toast! Best of luck to her this season.