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Champion System Clothing?

3K views 12 replies 10 participants last post by  Mattbikeboy 
#1 ·
Hey,
I dont know the best place to post this but i will start here in the general forum.
I am thinking of getting my team's jerseys for next year printed using champion system. i really like everything about them so far but i am wondering what you guys think of the quality. Durable? Easy to clean(mud)? Comfortable? Nice Chamois? Etc.
Thanks
 
#2 ·
Our team used Champion last year, this year we are going to spend a little more money & go with Nalini. Champs is appealing becuase of low costs & low minimum orders, but that is as far as the benefits go. The chamois is ok in Champ bibs, but 80% of our bibs were sewn crooked, where the shoulder straps were off center from the center of the short seem. Very uncomfortable, especially for the ladies on our team. Second, the communication process was a pita. We would email champ with a long lag between responses & since the kits are made in Asia, there was a communication break down between what we wanted on the kit & what they sent us in proofs. We sent them our final design, yet the draft kits they sent had a different font & color than what we specified.

The deal killer was from time of our kit submission to the day we actually received our kits was pushing 4 months, mostly due to their lack of good communication.

Hopefully nalini will turn out better.
 
#6 ·
thebadger said:
We had a lot of trouble with items that were cut/sewn oddly and needed to be returned.
HA! too funny! We had the same problem and when contacted Champs reply was to return the clothes for correction. So not only would we have to pay to ship this junk back, but we would be without our kits for another 2 months, coupled with the orginal 4 months we had to wait. My response was, why don't you ship us correctly sewn kits, and then we'll return all these defects.

Here's hoping they sew a lot straigher in Italy than they do in Korea.
 
#8 ·
We've used Castelli for the last 5 yrs and are pretty spoiled. But, we use Champ for all our other stuff based on the low min. From that standpoint, I think they have a good thing going. With Castelli, if 2 guys want winter jackets, too bad. Champ allows you to mix and match with the top pieces, so smaller teams can be accomodated.

As for the jerseys and bibs, ?? Never road them. Tried them on and they seemed OK. I love their winter stuff. The winter vest, long sleeve and just about all the other stuff--gloves, caps, etc is all nice stuff.

But, on an 85 degree June day on race day, I prefer my castelli bib and jersey.

The reps I have dealt with at Champ--Charlie and John have always been nice to deal with and we've had no issues with 3 orders over the last 3 seasons.
 
#12 ·
Champ sys, no good!

Similar problems for the one order our team tried with them last year -- again, the low mins and relatively affordable cost were appealing. Not worth it.

The colors didn't come CLOSE to matching what they were supposed to be -- one instance it was just a bad match from what it appeared, and on another, we actually got the wrong color entirely: ORANGE instead of GREEN.

Much better experience with Voler, and it you don't have a bunch of colors, and do have a bunch of riders, the price difference isn't so bad, though the minimums are higher and more restrictive.

My last year's team used VOMAX for their stuff, and it was quite affordable for what it was : basic team kit at a cheaper price point than Voler. It's a smallish operation out of Mass, they produce all of their own stuff, so it worked out pretty well. Quality wasn't quite where Hincapie was, the other choice, but the costs were literally about half per piece.
 
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