Why do apparel?
We live by the motto, “There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.” and therefore know how much good clothing can add to the pleasure of cycling. Probably even more so if you are “just” commuting, you want to arrive at your destination odor free and dry and since we want to encourage you to leave the car at home as often as you can, we realize you’ll need some functional clothing to actually do it. If you are thinking “so what, there are many brands doing that” you are right but we are convinced we can do it better.
Did you give any thought to what you are wearing today? Sure you did! Which options were you given, functionality, style, color…? Not all that much… Now imagine, by the simple act of dressing yourself you are given a multitude of additional options AND you’ve saved a little bit of our planet in doing so. We will provide you with options we believe no other biking brand does:
- Clothes manufactured in the most sustainable way we know of and is within our means. All our clothes, not just some for marketing purposes.
- Our clothes are made buy someone who actually got paid what they really deserve for their work and were treated as human beings rather than machines.
- Clothes made from the highest quality textiles, processes and craftsmanship to ensure optimal quality and longevity, which should prevent you from having to replace it every season and reduce your carbon footprint. The reality is, virtually everything we produce on this earth (even plants because of the use of engergy-intensive production of fertilizers; organic produce is much better here) leaves a carbon footprint and the best to reduce it (contrary to popular believe) is to produce less stuff.
- 10% of the sales price (not from the profit, as is often claimed) will be donated directly to the Goedgedacht Trust, the charity we are teaming up with for our bicycle project “Bikes for Africa”.
- Our clothing gives you the opportunity to be an activist every day, wherever you are, by clearly making a statement regarding your believes on sustainability and a fair world. Promoting a good cause is often as important as actually doing it and we realized many people have normal jobs but stiff want to make a difference, so this is your chance! The bigger commercial brands never dare to be this vocal, since they will always aim to please the masses. We are not interested in the masses, we are interested in you and want to empower you to make the difference! And hopefully even convince the masses 😉
- All of this is packaged in a cool, young and fresh design to express your personality and style. There is no reason why being sustain should be dull and bland as is often the case today, so we always strive to combine modern fashion with function and a timeless style, ensuring you won’t be bored with by the next season. What you buy from us today should still fit you and your taste years from now…
T-shirts
We’ve started our apparel collection with a selection of 100% organic T-shirts, which are sourced in Germany from a certified supplier (Hanes). The shirts are silk-screened with environmentally friendly water based paints in Austria and printed on order buy ourselves to avoid over production and the subsequent waste. It unfortunately does mean that we can’t offer “next day” deliveries but we believe this is a small (but necessary) price to pay and that a shirt not worth waiting a week for is not worth having…
For future developments we are experimenting with other sustainable textiles, since even organic cotton still has a relatively large footprint. Examples include mixtures between organic cotton and recycled polyester and our favorite, bamboo, which hast a very low carbon footprint and is extremely soft and comfortable but unfortunately considerably more expensive, which means we will have to sell them at a higher price (about 5 Euros more). Your opinion on this will be much appreciated.
We are also hoping that if we grow bigger we will be able to source t-shirts or textiles directly from the manufacturers or mills, which will allow us to give them better margins and ensure they adhere to the highest standards.
Functional wear
Since we are a bicycle brand and not a t-shirt company, next step is obviously to provide functional bike clothing and we are already in the final prototyping phase. We managed to source recycled polyester from a exclusive Swiss manufacturer (Eschler) a stone’s throw from us, which should considerably reduce our footprint in contrast to the low-cost Asian alternatives. We are also convinced that if we recruit seamstresses from the almost extinct Austrian textile industry, print the textiles locally and adopt our current sales and distribution model with some creative thinking we should be able to produce the apparel competitively in Europe. As sales grow we would love to extend production to the continents where the products are sold, in order to create local jobs and minimized the environmental impact. We’ll keep you up to date with the developments and stay tuned for some cool designs…
