Intro

Today I am going to do a review of the entire process of ordering a custom cycling kit from Hincapie Sportswear. Let’s roll back a few years to when one of our beloved bike shops in Winston-Salem went out of business. Of course that shop had custom kits so what were we to do now? Go back to wearing cut off denim shorts and tank tops like the 90’s back in college? Nope.? Ask everyone if they would be interested in getting custom kits for the upcoming season, that’s what. We didn’t have a “sponsor” anymore and we needed to be able to provide some lucky business our amazing results so they could see a 4000% return on their investment. Not really, we just wanted to have something on our jerseys. What did I do? I reached out to my riding buddy who owns his own Custom Home building business here in Winston to see if he would let us put his name on our kits. 5 versions later and he still has billboard space.

Decision to go with Hincapie

I decided to go with Hincapie because they were somewhat local and my experience up to that point with their clothing had been a few items, but nothing elaborate. Also, when I checked into the cost of custom clothing our minds were made up. Assuming you have a decent quantity of kits you want to order, it’s actually cheaper to go full custom than to buy off the shelf cycling clothing. Why wear something that the masses will be wearing at your next event?

Contact with Hincapie

The process is what I would describe as straightforward. What I mean by that is there is really no guesswork on how it’s going to work even before you actually contact someone. Their website is very informative and answers most if not all questions you may have. The most helpful tool they have is the ability to download art templates for each collection. This is where it all the fun begins……for me at least.

One important step in your contact with Hincapie is that you may want to order a fit kit. The fit kit comes in handy to get accurate sizing for each team member especially if this is your first time wearing their clothing.

Design

I have access to Adobe Illustrator and the design is done by my wife and I as opposed to using Hincapie’ s design services. The way the design works for us is that I don’t really have anything specific in mind when I begin. It’s more or less put colors and random designs on the template and eventually see what sticks. I ask my wife for her input and she will shoot me straight if things are going awry. Our first couple of kit designs a few years ago were straightforward with muted colors and not much personalization. We kept it simple. The last 3 iterations we have trended towards visibility with a touch of “style” to set us apart from others. The color are obviously not for everyone, but they work for us.

On a side note. Hincapie also has a design team that will work with you to create what you want. You can stay completely out of the realm of applying designs, colors, etc using Illustrator. From what I understand you can try to communicate your ideas to their team and they run with it. I personally have never done that, but it’s an option for those who don’t want to deal with the design.

Submitting to Hincapie

I should again mention that it is best to contact Hincapie before you start your design process so you can be assigned a Project Manager and that should help out if you should have any questions.

After you and your team have settled on a design you simply email your files along with any specific logos that you may have directly to your representative. From there it will be forwarded to the design team and they will clean everything up and make sure that all is good to go on the production end. Before anything goes into production you are sent a link to view the proofs and approve. What helps more than anything is they now send 3D images along with the “flat” files. For some it’s hard to envision 2D files in the 3rd dimension so it is definitely a useful tool.

If you have to / want to make a change to the proof you simply ask for changes. It is all done digitally so it is very easy to pinpoint what exactly needs to change using the interactive markup tools. In my experience with them the turnaround time for changes happens in 2 days or less.

When you are happy with what you see, click approved and then the waiting begins.

Execution

There are 2 ways to get your kits. Previous to this year I have always done a bulk order and just given the kits out after they came in. Guess what? That’s like nailing jello to a wall. Sounds easier than it actually is. This year Hincapie opened a store for us so all that people had to do was go to the website, place their order and their items were delivered directly to their doorstep. Why didn’t I do this years ago?

In our 5 years of ordering we have never had one thing missing / damaged or the wrong size come in. That’s impressive.

Finally wearing the kits

The particular collection that we have decided up on is Signature bibs with Velocity Jersey’s. Everyone loves a good bib and the Signature Series is really a good feeling bib that is a step above the Velocity Series. The Signature bibs fit a little tighter than the Velocity bibs so just be aware of fit differences between series. Ultimately, we decided to stay with a Velocity jersey because it’s a good compromise between straight up race fit and little more room to breathe. Over the years they have improved the fit and function of their kits incrementally. Whether that is making them lighter and more breathable or adding little trinkets like different style leg and arm grippers. As far as durability is concerned my kits have made it through multiple washes and wearings and they have held up remarkably well over the years.

Conclusion

Up to this point things have been great with the whole process and I expect that to continue until we are too old to squeeze into lycra. It won’t be too long until my wife and I will be riding Ebikes that will take us 300 miles on a single charge and weigh 19lbs. Maybe by then they will be offering an Ebike clothing collection.

One final note: You can re-order clothing throughout the year with no minimums so if someone sees your kit and wants in on the action they most likely would be able to order one, or two, or three………..