A few weeks ago, I was on a long ride and discovered that, though I was wearing my best bibs, the chamois was completely wore out. Not that fun. Of course, said bibs were new in February 2014, so this should have come as less of the shocking revelation that it did.
We're doing new kits. They're awesome. Mike has a blog somewhere in his back pocket about all of the smashing kits he'd like to wear if the world's secret best kit designer (who shall remain nameless) wasn't on the case on our behalf, but he got jammed up with some other stuff so I get to talk about it.
Etch-a-sketch, etch-a-sketchOnce again, we will be partnering with the fine folks at Verge Sport. Verge has always done a great job for us, and it's worth noting that I took for granted that three+ year old bibs would still be in great shape (and I actually do ride a lot, so they haven't been pampered). They make really good stuff.
We will be using the Strike+ jersey and bibs - just jersey and bibs. The Strike+ is a fully featured and functioning race jersey and bib, but the cut is "slim and trim" based, rather than "suck it in while your maidservant straps you into your sausage casing bodice aero cut" like our current kits are. Some of us have the fine figures to make the aero cut work, some of us don't. At least much of the year. You're not going to be riding around in a t-shirt and Bermuda shorts, but it's a bit more forgiving. Please be sure to check the size chart.
The pricing is noted on the relevant product pages. We're not saying it's going to be exactly that dollar for dollar as we don't know precisely what the final price is, but it's going to be awful close to that. We'll do a pre-order once we have the final proofs and then delivery will be a few weeks later - we're targeting early- to mid-June for delivery. In order to hit that, we need to be prompt once we get the final proofs, so this is really more like a "ready! set!" thing than a "go!" thing. But there won't be three weeks to dilly dally and maybe I will maybe I won't once the pre-order opens. Kind of more like three days.
New blue, new you
The final colors are going to differ from the sketch above. I was limited by Sharpie's rainbow, as my Crayola 64 box is in the shop. The red is accurate, but the blues will be darker. The main body blue will be more like the IAM cycling blue, while the logo blue will be... logo blue, with which many of you are familiar.
There's been a lot of enthusiasm for this coming out of the gate. We won't be keeping score and thinking you're a jerk if you don't get some, and we're not doing it as a money making thing at all. What we categorically WILL think you're a jerk for is giving the finger to cars or yelling at people or peeing on people's front yards while wearing our logo. We think you're a jerk of you do that stuff anyway, but more so if you do it in our kits, so please don't. There, I said it.
Again, not yet but soon, it's going to be lovely, the jersey will look just smashing with black bibs (one of the design considerations), it will be high quality stuff, and have you looked at kit prices out there? A freaking bargain.