Good news - club kit

[Deleted]

not being a woman I don't really know what the big differences between men and womens kit are

Shorts are different too. The padding is in a difference place and as women tend to have shorter torsos and longer legs, shorts are cut differently. This is most apparant with bib shorts.

Personally I don't think we should be encouraging people to wear jerseys with non DP shorts. It spoils the whole look of the design.

Great bit of research Kirsty, really, really helpful

[Deleted]

well, obviously I'd be very happy not to have to pay a large proportion of the set-up cost! But if that was the only way to get women's kit...

As for the differences in kit, the only club kit I know about is the cycling stuff from my triathlon club - and the jerseys and shorts are both very different, this same debate went on at that club too. If I got a bloke's jersey that was the equivalent of the women's size I need, it's way too tight across the chest - the men's jerseys tend to be square, the women's tapered to the waist. Plus the sleeves on the men's jerseys are relatively longer too. Cycling shorts tend to have different-shaped padding for men's and women's, and the women's shorts come up higher at the back (to allow for the extra curves!), whilst the men's ones, er, allow for bulges at the front. Again, the shorts tend to be a bit squarer for blokes and tapered at the waist for women. However, everyone's different, I'm probably slightly curvier than the average female cyclist. I could get away with a bloke's jersey but it would flap a lot and therefore be horrible to race in, there's no way I could wear blokes' shorts - if they fitted my hips, they'd fall down at the waist, which would be deeply unattractive for anyone behind me...

Personally I'm less bothered about the shorts, because I would probably wear them only for racing, and I'm unlikely to be fit to race again till next season now - but if they were available I'd get them. As far as 40 items go, I'm happy to buy three items that are different (long-sleeve, short-sleeve, shorts) but I wouldn't buy three duplicate items. Assuming that 10 women felt the same, you could therefore sell on 75% of the order immediately if you ordered an assortment of 40 items, but only 25% if you ordered 40 s/s jerseys... It seems that the downside with sticking with Sportful for jerseys would be that we would have to choose between short-sleeve and long-sleeve, because we can't order 80 women's jerseys.

If the other women wanting kit are happy for me to get samples from ProVision, I'm certainly happy to order them, but if someone else is already 'in charge' then I'll pass the details on and back off! Maybe Julene/Karen/any other women reading this can email me to let me know their thoughts/sizes for sample testing? I don't mind doing the phonecalls/ordering but I don't want to p*ss anyone off in the process.

K

[Deleted]

oops, crossed with Karen. I agree that DP jerseys with non-DP shorts would look pretty rubbish, especially if you have a few DP women together, some wearing black shorts, some blue, all different lengths - and it seems a bit half-hearted to go for part of the kit and not all of it.

the reason I think that the shorts are less important for me personally is because for half the year I'm wearing 3/4 or thermals on training rides, whereas I'd still want to wear a club jersey - but if I was racing regularly I'd want the whole matching kit and men's shorts would just be too uncomfortable to race in.

[julene]

Hello Kirsty, you are definitely NOT treading on anyone's toes. That's some pretty good intelligence you have gathered there - well done for that! As far as I know, no one is in charge so go for it.

If you can get some samples I reckon that would be very useful and at the very least will get us started. Dulwich women come in a range of shapes and sizes, but for my part I'd be happy if you had some large samples to look at...

If at all possible I reckon we should try and avoid shirts that have zips with a life of their own that, when done up, apart from throttling you, take on the shape of an unflattering and prominent monoboob (as some of the shirts in the old style do). This is the criticism that prompted Bob to say me/Claire/Karen were not very complimentary about Impsport's stuff.

I too would be happy to cough up a contribution to set up costs if that is going to make the whole thing possible.

[Deleted]

I'm keen to avoid unflattering kit too! Pro-Vision are going to send me some samples, this is what they've said:

"Road kit is what we specialise in, so the fit is really comfortable also durable as you will see in the samples. Regarding the shorts women tend to use the waist fit as they are a far better fit with out the bibs for obvious reasons however we can make ladies bibshorts if needed.

Bioactive is a material which is more advanced coolmax, if you go on to the website it explains a bit more about it. Cheaper alternative is summer jacquard. Still a good quality material but with basic properties compared to the bioactive but still a nice snugg fit.

The sizing chart which we use for ladies is the following: (website is getting updated this weekend)

Jerseys:

32 = xxsmall
34 = xsmall
36 = small
38 = medium
40 = large
42 = xlarge

The shorts are the same as you will see in the samples which are sent. I will do my best to send you a mixed batch down. I will send to s/s jerseys bio & summer jaquard so you can se the diffrence."

I guess the best thing is if I post on here when I receive them, and anyone who wants to try the samples then should contact me directly? I'm planning to do the Sat ride next weekend, but it's not really going to be feasible to stuff panniers with samples and take them on the ride, and besides, my road bike doesn't have a rack - so either we all meet at a specific time and place (with changing rooms), or interested women can just turn up to my house (Greenwich) whenever they're free. I'm desperately trying to write up my PhD at the moment, so it's not like I have a life in the evenings anyway... Meanwhile, if there are any other questions that I need to get answers for, please let me know - I can't think of anything else I need to check at this stage. We can get a quote for the actual design if we're happy with the fit.

[Deleted]

Just a footnote... Vermarc (a Belgian company) make womens kit I think. They also make the Lotto & QuickStep (& London Phoenix) teams kit. Not the cheapest but V. good quality.

UK contact is Interbike: www.interbike.co.uk/html/contact_us.html

But sounds like you have got things sorted out already.

[Deleted]

Thanks for all your work on this Kirsty.

Can we get samples in a number of sizes - xsmall - large?

[Deleted]

A thought. Should we get the samples delivered to Bob's, if Bob is okay with that? That way we can contrast and compare with the sportful kit. We should arrange one evening when the girls can go round to try the kit otherwise it will be awkward for Bob having to be in all the time

[Deleted]

I've asked for samples in varying sizes, but there may be a small delay because another club hasn't yet returned them... Apparently they posted what they had available yesterday, so I when it arrives I'll put a message up to say what's in the parcel. Unfortunately we will need to wait until the other club returns the samples before we'll get a full range. I gave my address over the weekend, so I'm afraid it was too late to send the stuff to Bob - but if we end up meeting at his house to do a comparison, I'll just bring it with me.

Anyway, I guess we'll have to see what's in the parcel this week, because if there's just one jersey in XXS and one pair of shorts in XXL, we won't be able to do much till the next parcel comes! It's a small, family-run firm - so I guess the upside is they can do the smaller orders of 40 mixed items, but the downside is they don't have loads of samples in stock...

Is it worth following up on Ric's message too (thanks Ric!), or shall we wait and see what comes out of this first?

[julene]

thanks for sorting that K. I guess we can easily transport stuff to Bob's or I could borrow kevin's new kit and bring it round yours for comparison when the stuff arrives. Bob has a contact at the place Ric mentioned. They want to see a copy of the design first.

[Forum Admin]

I've made a final plea to Neil at Sportful. He will take it up when he has a meeting with them next week. Seems that we are not only battling with order quantities, but also that they don't actually do a women's specific jersey!

Got a slightly strange email from Steve Joughin today saying he is sending samples (provision). Only warning there is that Herne Hill Youth used them and their lead times turned out to be longer than Sportful (ouch).

Very happy for samples to be sent to me. Once they are all here though, not absolutely sure about hosting the "tupperware party" that presumably follows....(!).

[Deleted]

Bizarre! I got an email from Ben Joughin (Steve's son) saying the samples were being sent to me! I got home from the gym this morning to find a Royal Mail slip so I guess that the parcel is waiting at the Sorting Office - will pick it up tomorrow. Bob - I certainly didn't give your details out, and wouldn't without asking you, so I guess Steve must have got your email address from British Cycling. I had to give the club name so they knew who they were sending samples to, but other than that I've only given my own phone number/email address.

We can sort sth out about trying on samples - if you've got the Sportful kit, maybe I should just borrow some of that stuff from you for an evening and host the 'tupperware party'... doesn't really seem fair that your house should be used as a women's changing room. (I wonder how long it will take before some other male cyclist picks up on the possibilities here and offers their place?!?!)