Pro Cycling Apparel is the cycling apparel development team that cycling brands, federations and race teams work with when they need a race kit developed, sampled and documented.
A development team for race upper body and outer layers, from race-fit jerseys and gilets to thermal jackets, warmers and caps.
Pro Cycling Apparel is one of three doors into the same factory, and each door handles one stage of a cycling apparel programme.
Keeping development on its own door means the people you work with here spend their time on pattern, fabric, colour and sample sign-off.
The development manager is your contact for the whole project, and the pattern maker, sample technician and colour and print technician work on your garments at their own workstations.
When development closes, you choose where bulk runs. The signed spec pack can go to your own production line, or, with your approval, to cyclingapparelfactory.com. If your clubs later need a team ordering service, teamcyclingkits.com is the door for that.
The development files are written so that a production line can run from them directly.
Our cycling apparel development studio is laid out by process into three workstations. A garment moves through them in a fixed order, and each workstation has a named role that signs off before the garment moves on.
This is where the base block is drafted in the riding position, where grading across your size range is done and where the cutting diagrams are drawn. Fit decisions are made here, and the pattern maker signs them.
Samples are sewn here and then measured point by point against your size chart. The measurement report is written and signed at this bench, before any sample is packed.
Strike-offs on each base fabric are viewed here under D65 light against your colour standard, and the colour card for each fabric is signed here.
That role carries your brief into the studio, carries questions and disagreements back to you, sets the sampling schedule and issues the spec pack at sign-off.
Two rules stop a sample inside the studio. Both are held by the roles at the workstations, and both apply on every project.
Until every base fabric in the kit has a signed colour card, the sample bench does not start the sample.
If one card is still open, the colour and print technician keeps it at the D65 colour station, and the development manager tells you which fabric is waiting and what is needed to close it.
The measurement report carries two signature positions: the sample technician signs for measurements, and the pattern maker signs for fit. If the measurement report does not pass, the sample does not ship.
A sample without both signatures stays in the studio, and the development manager reschedules around the stop.
Common practice in sample rooms is to ship the sample with a covering note and leave measurement to the buyer.
With us, the two signatures are the release condition, and a sample without both does not leave the studio.
We develop for three types of client.
product leads adding a race line or a layering range to an existing cycling apparel business.
technical directors preparing kit for several squads or race formats in one season.
technical leads setting the race-day kit for the season.
Our main markets are the United States, Europe (the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries) and Australia.
We develop race upper body and outer layers:
This is the layer where our development judgement is concentrated. Pattern in the riding position, fabric assigned panel by panel and colour matched across several base fabrics are the three decisions that shape these garments, and the same four roles make them for every piece in the kit.
A federation preparing a jersey, gilet and thermal jacket for a season receives the patterns, fabric specifications and colour parameters for all three in a single set of documents, built on one pattern logic and one colour standard.
For these pieces we develop and sample to that supplier's specification.
The finished garment and the pad certification sit with you and your pad supplier.
This scope gives a clear answer at the first message. If your programme is a race upper-body kit, we develop all of it. If it includes bib pieces, the feasibility review states which parts we develop and sample, and which stay with your pad supplier.
Every garment we develop uses binary nylon-spandex in one of three blends: 88/12, 90/10 or 91/9.
Those blends are made up in four fabric types:
The brushed-back thermal is a finishing variant of the same binary blend.
We chose one fibre family for a colour reason. In sublimation, the same fibre family takes up dye and recovers its stretch in the same way, so one colour standard can be matched on every base fabric in the kit.
A race kit that combines mesh, main body, brushed thermal and laminate stays on one colour standard because the four fabrics share one fibre system.
a set of signed colour cards, one per base fabric, and a separate set of colour parameters for each fabric inside the spec pack.
Common practice is to match colour on the main fabric and let the other fabrics follow.
With us, every base fabric carries its own signed card and its own parameters, so the gilet front, jersey back and jacket body are each matched to your standard.
Send your garment list, size range and race conditions to the development manager, and receive a feasibility review within 48 hours of a complete spec.
When views differ during development, each type of question has a fixed decision-maker and a fixed reference.
The development manager brings each disagreement back to you with the reference it was judged against, schedules the next round and keeps the record. The development manager does not change a specification you have confirmed. Your confirmed size chart and signed colour standard stay fixed until you change them.
The log travels with each revised sample, so you see the entry for a round when the sample for that round arrives. The first 2 revision rounds carry no extra sampling fee.
When you change a specification you have already confirmed, a new sampling cycle starts, and the change goes into the revision log in the same way.
your confirmed size chart, your signed colour standard and a revision log that grows by one entry for each change.
Common practice is to agree revisions in email or chat threads, with no line-by-line log tied back to the confirmed spec.
With us, the log entries and your signed references give QA a written trail from the first sample to sign-off.
Three certificates are available with your first message, and each one covers a different layer.
For QA review
For compliance and sustainability review
Each certificate can go straight into an approval file. Ask for the set when you send your brief, and the development manager sends them with the first reply.
At sign-off, the development manager hands over the complete spec pack in eight parts:
The full revision log is handed over with it. The files and the record of every change belong to you.
Whichever route you take, bulk printing works from the per-fabric colour parameters in the pack. Bulk is checked against the signed colour cards and measurement report, which remain in your hands.
We also keep the project on file. For next season or a repeat order, development starts from the same spec pack and the same colour parameters, and any change you make is added to the revision log in the usual way.
all eight parts, the revision log and the signed references.
Common practice is for patterns to stay with the supplier, with development run mainly to win the bulk order.
With us, development is a separate door and the files leave with you.
The patterns, cutting diagrams, spec pack and colour parameters from your project are used for your project only. They are not reused on other clients' projects and are not shown on this site. The same rule holds whether or not you sign an NDA: your files stay with your project, and the spec pack and revision log handed to you at sign-off are yours to keep. If your team needs a signed confidentiality agreement, we sign an NDA with you before development starts. Ask for it with your brief.
A project starts with your first message to the development manager. To write a feasibility review, we need:
Expect a first reply inside 24 hours on working days. Once the spec is complete, the feasibility review reaches you inside 48 hours. It states, garment by garment, whether development to spec is possible, which pattern and fabric direction we propose, and the sampling plan with its dates. The first sample follows in 5–7 days.
In each case the reply states what is missing, or which door handles the request: cyclingapparelfactory.com for bulk, teamcyclingkits.com for team ordering.
Send your garment list, size range and target race conditions, and add your artwork and colour standard if you have them.
The development manager replies within 24 hours on working days, and the feasibility review follows within 48 hours of a complete spec. Ask for the certificates or an NDA in the same message.