We have been investigating the possibility of changing suppliers for our club kit and would be interested to hear club member’s opinions. The vests and t-shirts in our club colours of blue with red & white diagonal stripes are fairly cheap at £20 but some members have expressed concerns at the quality, with common complaints being that the ladies vests tend to chafe the underarm area, the men’s t-shirts are not long enough in the body and both men’s and ladies t-shirts seem to fade or become threadbare fairly quickly (especially when repeatedly pinning race numbers onto them, or wearing a camelbak). Most members only ever seem to wear club colours for races, but maybe if the clothing was of a higher quality then people might wear it when training too?

The supplier we are investigating is Champion System UK (http://champ-sys.co.uk) who Clapham Chasers buy their club kit from and they are happy with their service and the quality of the kit. As well as running clothing Champion System UK also supply cycling and triathlon clothing and have a large range of items available (see http://champ-sys.co.uk/media/wysiwyg/UKPriceList2015.pdf for a full list). In theory once they have our design setup they can produce any item on their list in 26.2 colours (26.2 cycling jersey anyone?). When ordering stock in bulk, the club will also only have to order 10 items at a time, which can be items of any type (e.g. 3 short sleeved t-shirts, 2 vests, 1 cycling top, 4 race shorts). So this should allow us to obtain kit in popular sizes quicker and also potentially save the club some money as we won’t need to keep such a large amount of stock.

However this all comes at a price as Champion System UK kit is more expensive: vests are £25, short sleeved t-shirts are £29 and long sleeved t-shirts are £35. This is compared to £20 for any of these from the current club kit suppliers.

Libby has obtained some samples from Champion System UK, which are not in our club colours but give an example of the quality, fit and sizes for both men’s and ladies t-shirts, vests and shorts. She will be bringing these to the club sessions on Monday 30th March and Wednesday 1st April (which is also the club handicap race night) so please take a look. Once you have taken a look at what is available, please cast your vote using the Poll on the left hand side of this page as to whether you would be prepared to pay more for the better quality clothing in club colours (one vote per member). The poll will be open for a few weeks, but we will warn people before closing it to ensure that everyone has had a chance to vote.