Sharing the LOVE!

photo: Red Dots Cycling

Carolle an I have worked together for a couple of years. 

Only our close friends know that we have been together for seventeen years, sharing our love and creativity. Today, we want to thank our clients for supporting us in living our dream of having our own business working together.

It's Valentines Day and we want to share our LOVE by offering everything in our website at ...25% OFF!

At the checkout use coupon code: LOVEU

And make sure to share the love... now until Sunday February 17th!

Carolle & Richard

Custom Brits Wool Winter Caps at Ride Studio Cafe

Ariela stylin' the custom Brits wool winter cap,

Lexington, MA

courtesy: Ride Studio Cafe

Our famous Brits wool winter cap has been chosen as a custom cap.

Ride Studio Cafe of Lexington, Massachusetts is our client that requested a Brits winter cap with a black stripe. Yesterday, they received their custom Brits caps appropriately in snowy Lexington. As you remember our Brits winter cap, made from 100% British Superfine Wool, was made famous and featured in the November/2012 issue of Bicycling Magazine. A proud moment for us.

We are happy and sad. Our fantastic supplier had enough fabric for us to make this small run. We bought up the remaining fabric and have a very small supply of original Brits currently on our website. 

There's already good response from Ride Studio Cafe...

We really like these new hats!

Thank you!

Our star... The Brits winter cycling cap

photo: Red Dots Cycling

Tools of the Trade: Tailor's Chalk & Hem Gauge

photo: Red Dots Cycling

Basic tools are essential in measuring and marking.

We use the simple tailor's chalk and hem gauge. Been around for eons, the tailor's chalk is made of talc and won't leave a residue. Very important not to have fabric permanently marked.

The hem gauge is used for everything that we need to measure, it goes beyond hems. It has a sliding adjustable guide to keep measurements pinpoint. This nifty tool is owned by Carolle and is over 30 years old and made in Canada. A rarity these days.  Even Carolle can not remember exactly how old it is.

These tools are truly classic and we wouldn't know what to do without it. If you sew... these are a must!

TGIF: Year of the Snake

Happy Chinese New Year!

via Fixielicious-Hong Kong

TGIF time...


This Sunday is the Year of the Snake, celebrating the lunar year of 4711. The forecast is for a year of optimism. We all need optimism and we are looking forward to a successful year!

Return of the Falling Leaves!

Falling Leaves is back!

All photos © Red Dots Cycling

It has been very busy for us since last Autumn producing our popular winter cycling caps. Our winter caps took us by a winter storm outselling very well. Not by choice, we had to put our regular stock caps on temporary standby. Now, we have a brief period between custom cap orders and have quite a few popular caps to produce...

We are happy to have the return of the Falling Leaves!

Made from cotton/spandex/denim in classic black. Don't worry about it shrinking on you, we pre-wash all of our fabric and just gently handwash in cold soapy water, squeeze gently and hang dry. It is a heavier weight fabric due to the denim content and that means one can wear it on cool Spring/Autumn days. Heck, you can wear it on a winter day too providing it's not too cold. The uniqueness is under the brim... 

Nicknamed for the great Italian classic ll Lombardia we include the tricolore , so we say ...show your Italian pride with the Falling Leaves!

Ciao!

In honor of ll lombardia!

TGIF: Carolle's Birthday & Seven Cycles

It's a special day as we are celebrating Carolle's birthday!

That means a skeleton crew is here (me) manning the controls so I'll be busy shipping, answering email and taking Carolle for a birthday dinner. Happy Birthday Carolle!

We are happy again to be working with the fine folks at Seven Cycles of Watertown, Massachusetts. That means custom cycling cap orders are now in preparation mode. Photos upcoming.

Richard

What to do with a bent cycling brim

Darn that's a bend in my brim!

A customer recently asked that his Petit Breton winter cap sat under some dirty laundry and discovered a bend in the brim. He tried to flatten it with a heavy book and he wanted to know if there was a fixable solution....

The main reason why we use a heavy interfacing for our brim material is that it is flexible and if you find yourself with a bend in the brim, you can fix it yourself. Unlike most cycling cap companies, WE DO NOT USE plastic for our brim material for the simple fact that it can crack when folded. From experience I had cycling cap brims made of plastic, that cracked when folded.

One of our requirements for our cycling caps was that we wanted the cap brim to be folded without the risk of damaging the brim. Plastic was out of the question. So, we are using heavy interfacing that is strong and flexible.



Here's what to do if you find a bend in your brim on your Red Dots Cycling cap!


1. Have a hot iron on steam setting at the ready. Make sure you have water in it.

2. Wet a cloth.

3. Sandwich your injured brim between the wet cloth.

4. Apply the hot iron to create lots of steam. Repeat until the crease comes out.

This will remove the crease and bring back your brim to a healthy state.

Under Pressure!

Sandwich a wet cloth between the brim,

Apply hot iron, steam setting ON, until crease is removed...

Afterwards...

your brim may be a little wet but let it dry and all's fine

and ready for the next ride!

Richard

TGIF: Custom Cap Crazy, New Wool & Dog Gone!

Custom caps...

As we are currently immersed in our custom winter cap orders, we are also quoting on new custom cap orders... it's all very exciting. We have never before worked and quoted on so many custom cap orders in such a short time.

rubber labels shaping up to cut...

Here's our newest wool blend fabric that will be destined as a new cycling cap. Now, the question is whether we introduce as a Spring cap (no ear flaps) or a Winter cap? We have been asked for a wool cap without ear flaps... so m-a-y-b-e this will be the one.

New wool blend waiting to be unleash!

TGIF and beers are planned for beer o'clock.

One day we will have a shop dog...

Have a great weekend!

Dog gone!

TGIF: Parker St Studios & Very Busy

It's Friday and and it's just about to get  REALLY BUSY here at Red Dots headquarters.

January has started with a bang... for more custom cycling cap orders. We have a list of cycling caps that need to come back into stock but we haven't had the time to do it. So it looks like we will be pulling late nights next week to fulfill the custom orders, approved today, and back into making our regular cycling caps. 

You know, we have been looking to expand our little company. Our friend Hans mentioned 1000 Parker Street, here in the Vancouver Eastside. Here's a video on the denizens and some history of this fantastic Artist community....

Quest For The Right Scissors

Cutting to the top!

Scissors are a very important tool in our Red Dots Cycling world.

We have gone through so many and spent many bucks trying to find the right pair. There are many types, sizes and brands... it's a jungle out there.

It's funny, the one that we end up using the most is under 5 dollars. We discovered that we both cut differently. The way we both hold our scissors are one distinction. So, we will try to find and label our own scissors so we always use our own pair. Let's see if this makes a difference. So far, nothing stands out from the crowded scissors world.

We are big fans of Henckels and bought two pairs today from our new supplier. Those are the two scissors, top left hand corner of the photo. It's too early to say, but we will put them through a grueling test on our next custom cap order. In fact, I see our next 50 custom cap order waiting to be cut. This will be a good test.

So, we are still on the quest for the ...right pair of scissors!

Carolle

TGIF: NO January Blues.

Flemish Winter Wool Cap,

by Red Dots Cycling.

January is remarkably busy for us.

The month is usually a time for us to reaccess and plan for new products for the upcoming year. Now, our work table is full-on for more wholesale custom cap orders. In fact, we just finished and shipped off a batch of cool custom caps to the US. A detailed post upcoming.

We received a unique request to make our Flemish wool winter cap into a ...summer cap. That's a new one for us, that means no ear flap. It's unusual. But, it makes us think there may be a demand for a warmer cap without ear flap. This could be a cap for next Autumn.

After our last craft show, in December, the attention grabber for us is that our winter cycling caps are  a fashion accessory. A young woman, not a cyclist, enthusiastically purchased the Red Hunting cap for about town. Many women bought our winter caps based on the design. It's made to be stylish to walk around town, warm and comfortable to keep that rain/snow out of your eyes. Our winter caps are popular with dog owners.

You may have notice the price has increased on all of our recycled inner tube products. After evaluating our products and the long hours of preparing and producing we can now confidently enter the wholesale market. In fact, we shipped off our fun rubber products to a US sportswear company. Again, a detail post upcoming.

We are planning our upcoming new 3-season caps with new fabric and colors. And, we will be working on some old favorites; to all the folks that have requested some of our popular caps from last season... have patience, they will return!


Have a fun Friday!

500 Recycled Bike Inner Tubes, and Counting!

Back from the local bike shop

with raw tubes and with plenty of hard work we turn

it into...

We realized that we have passed the 500th recycled bike inner tube used in our popular rubber products. That's a milestone.

When we first started Red Dots Cycling, we thought it would be fun to use re-cycled material for our products.

The reality is when it comes to fabric, many companies are already making garments out of re-cycled fabric. In fact, it's difficult to find and if you can find the material it's usually not fit to make a cycling cap. We tried to make caps out of old denim, suitings and shirts. It was fun to make but not a reliable source of fabric to build our cycling cap business. The only option is to purchase new fabrics, pre-wash before making cycling caps.

There must be another plentiful, re-cycled material to use?

Richard requested a pouch to hold keys, money and tools on his rides.

So, we came up with the idea of rubber bike inner tubes from bike stores. A sustainable practice that makes sense. We are happy and proud to be using re-cycled bike inner tubes  that would be destined for a long time in the landfill. But, it requires a lot of work to get it, secure it, wash it, cut, and produce. Many companies have approached us for our rubber inner tube products to sell in their stores.

We looked long and hard and having sold our products for the last two years at a low price it was time for a price change. We are thankful it's a free material. When Richard returns with bags full there are often surprises. It does come from a bike shop and it's always dirty or really dirty. We often find rust, oil, grease, and that annoying no-flat goo to prevent flats. And of course that allergic white powder inside every tube. What this means, there is many hours of prep before we go into production. Cleaning that is!

So, this is why we have raise the price of our popular inner tube products to cover our costs and time. They are all one of a kind, fun, well-made and now available in many stores in Manchester UK, Ontario and Oregon!

... fun, innovative products!

The New Presta 100% Wool Winter Cycling Cap

Happy New Year everyone!


We are proud to introduce a new winter cap...

The New Presta 100% Wool Winter Cycling Cap!

Handmade from 100% British fine wool, it's a black wool beauty with tiny grey dot pattern. Also new, our ear flap is better... made from Bamboo cotton blend fabric. Why?

Bamboo cotton is far superior than just cotton. Properties: antibacterial, hypoallergenic, wicks/dries quickly and super comfy.

Now available in two sizes: Small/Medium (21-22.5") and Medium/Large (22.5-24").