Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

kunalraiker wrote:

bardygrub wrote:Montons new address http://www.cyclingmonton.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How are the montons for melbourne winters, has anyone tried them during our last winter ?

I live in Wangaratta which gets cold in winter and i purchased the thermal kit and it kept me warm.

bardygrub wrote:

kunalraiker wrote:

bardygrub wrote:Montons new address http://www.cyclingmonton.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How are the montons for melbourne winters, has anyone tried them during our last winter ?

I live in Wangaratta which gets cold in winter and i purchased the thermal kit and it kept me warm.

Noted!

another mupi order for me and some mates, one s/s jersey and bib short kit, and two jerseys

ordered/paid - 5/2
dispatched - 6/2
arrived - 13/2

bardygrub wrote:

kunalraiker wrote:

bardygrub wrote:Montons new address http://www.cyclingmonton.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How are the montons for melbourne winters, has anyone tried them during our last winter ?

I live in Wangaratta which gets cold in winter and i purchased the thermal kit and it kept me warm.

I was trying to find what difference there was between Monton's winter jersey kits and the standard kit.
There isn't much information on the website, can someone enligten me on that?

Kuna, if you go on to there site click on thermal section (on the left hand side) then click on any of the thermal products eg kit scrool down, and it shows you that its made of 100 % polyester thermal.
Like ive said before i rode all last winter with just a light singlet underneath one of thier thermal l/s tops and was toastie! Dont get thier l/s kits mixed up with thier L/s thermal kits though.

There are replicas on DealExtreme. I ordered a replica jersey and shorts set for $35, there were cheaper. Now the wait.

Scrap that, they replied back after a week saying they don't have my size in stock. Order cancelled.

Bought some bib longs in preparation for the winter commute from montons.

My god the sizing .

They have used a freak, or gorilla or something not human as a sizing model. I have tried lots of brands over the years, including other Chinese knock offs (mupi). These are just wrong everywhere. Loose at the ankles, tight at the knees, loose at the butt, tight at the waste and stupidly short in the bib section.

My advice: steer well clear. I know I am, they'll be getting no more orders from me. Unless I get put through a mincer and remanufactured in a bizarre shape.

I bought 3 tops and shorts from MoreMile. I've never had proper cycling tops yet, but they have the zipper, pockets at back, grips at the bottom of the top, and a decent design for a plain top. Nice bright colours for being seen. Size was L, which is my normal t shirt size, fit nicely. 16UKP each, but that includes VAT I'm pretty sure, which they take off for us, and there was a sale on all products when I bought. Very happy with this purchase after only 1 ride.

Samewood - Farnese Vini SS jersey and bib short kit (size XL for both)

Mupi were out of stock so tried samewood, i thought they all came from the same manufacturer anyway right?

BIb shorts were good, and fit as advertised on samewoods size guide.

Jersey on the otherhand was much too large around the chest and abdomen, while very snug around the arms. Im a 42" chest and theres no way this jersey is a 39.5"-41. Id need to go a size down.

If only there were some decent looking cheap jerseys out there

I have no interest in advertising for a pro team or parts manufacturer - whether or not I'm paying licensing fees for the privilege.

I don't like the in-house designs by Monton and Mupi, emblazoned with random English words ("Cycling Praising Life", "Skull Aircraft" - Say What?!).

But the super-plain jerseys (at MoreMile) are just a bit too plain.

It seems if you want nice looking cycling kit without being too much of a mobile billboard, you need to pay the crazy money for Rapha or Vulpine, with the design aesthetic (and social connotations) that come with those labels.

Actually, Livestrong have a few reasonable looking designs IMO, but I'm not really interested in advertising their brand either - regardless of recent media attention .

If only we could get some kind of collaboration going between the creative minds at redbubble.com, deviantart.com etc., and the cheap custom jersey makers at flamecycling.com. I'd gladly pay, say, $45 for a $35 jersey that has some interesting graphics printed on it. An talented art/design student would only need to sell 100 jerseys to make $1k out of a design... and I reckon that would be a pretty reasonable payday for a hobby designer.

Anybody involved in design communities like those? Anybody dealt with the custom design process at Flame Cycling (or similar)?

tim

barefoot wrote:If only there were some decent looking cheap jerseys out there

I have no interest in advertising for a pro team or parts manufacturer - whether or not I'm paying licensing fees for the privilege.

I don't like the in-house designs by Monton and Mupi, emblazoned with random English words ("Cycling Praising Life", "Skull Aircraft" - WT??!).

But the super-plain jerseys (at MoreMile) are just a bit too plain.

It seems if you want nice looking cycling kit without being too much of a mobile billboard, you need to pay the crazy money for Rapha or Vulpine, with the design aesthetic (and social connotations) that come with those labels.

Actually, Livestrong have a few reasonable looking designs IMO, but I'm not really interested in advertising their brand either - regardless of recent media attention .

If only we could get some kind of collaboration going between the creative minds at redbubble.com, deviantart.com etc., and the cheap custom jersey makers at flamecycling.com. I'd gladly pay, say, $45 for a $35 jersey that has some interesting graphics printed on it. An talented art/design student would only need to sell 100 jerseys to make $1k out of a design... and I reckon that would be a pretty reasonable payday for a hobby designer.

Anybody involved in design communities like those? Anybody dealt with the custom design process at Flame Cycling (or similar)?

tim

I have the skills / knowledge / manufacturing hookups to create a brand. I've been thinking about doing something but just sitting on it for the time being.

Along the lines of cool kit that is reasonable quality, reasonably priced (jersey + knicks <$150). Subtle branding or edgier designs.

As far as selling 100 jerseys to make $1k, if you're only designing and not fronting any cash that could be appealing to some. If you're doing all the legwork, fronting the cash on production, building a brand and creating online distribution point... not so appealing.

I suppose it depends on how legit you want to go but if you want to do it properly, yeah there are costs.

As someone who has built a brand from scratch (not a road cycling wear brand) and knows how much effort you need to put in to get things going and actually make some money (because if you value your time, breaking even [or losing money] isn't an option), I certainly wouldn't be interested at that sort of margin. Low volume direct to public - you can't survive on ~30% markup.

boss wrote:As far as selling 100 jerseys to make $1k, if you're only designing and not fronting any cash that could be appealing to some. If you're doing all the legwork, fronting the cash on production, building a brand and creating online distribution point... not so appealing.

Definitely, I understand that. I wouldn't expect anybody to pay for a long run of $35 jerseys hoping to sell them all for $45/piece. You'd need a far greater return to warrant such a risk.

But Flame Cycling will do $35 custom jerseys, with a MOQ of one unit. That is, you get the design worked out, and they'll print them on demand. No investment required other than the time and talent to do the design.

I'd do a few kits of one-offs, but my lack of design talent kills that idea dead.

I've had a bit of a fiddle with their online design layout tool, and it's pretty crude, but I get the impression that you just use it to indicate the location of the graphics you upload, then a human designer at their end lays it out properly on the garment and confirms the design before printing.

I think it's astonishing that they can do this for the price, but I'm often amazed by how much work you can get done for little money by under-paid yet highly skilled workers in China.

I certainly wouldn't be interested at that sort of margin. Low volume direct to public - you can't survive on ~30% markup.

For sure.

But if it's just a matter of the artist submitting a design, then collecting a commission on each sale - which is, I understand, how businesses like Redbubble operate - then it might be more viable.

It could even be a third-party coordinating business (who also skim a small margin) - collecting and cataloguing the artists designs, and placing orders on Flame (or whoever) to print as required. If the process exists for Chinese manufacturers to produce one-off kits [1] and stay in business selling them for $35, then I see no reason why there couldn't be an extra level in the supply chain - effectively, a kind of design consultancy.

I'd be interested in seeing what kind of designs you come up with if you do go ahead and launch a new non-premium-priced-but-nice-looking cycling gear brand.

tim

[1] Looking at their samples gallery, I can only assume they print on blank fabric, then cut and sew the garment. Again, it amazes me for the price, but I guess a sweatshop worker [2] doesn't cost any more to run a hem on a custom jersey than on jersey #2346 of a long run of fake (or real) BMC kits.
[2] ...and let's face it, if we're buying <$50 jerseys (and probably if we're buying >$50 jerseys), they're being manufactured by very poorly paid workers. Just like all the other cheap Chinese stuff we surround ourselves with.

I bought a couple of plain Diadora jerseys about 4 years ago at K-Mart for about $25 each. These were mostly single color (yellow and red - can't remember if they had other colors) with a bit of a white stripe down the sides and a touch of black. Unfortunately they don't sell Diadora any more and the couple I have are starting to fray at the seems.

These ones that Google found at Torpedo7 are a little fancier than the ones I have - I don't like that big black stripe on the back.

If anyone can find a simple plain jersey for a reasonable price, I'm all ears .

Cheers,
Simon.

barefoot wrote:If only there were some decent looking cheap jerseys out there

I have no interest in advertising for a pro team or parts manufacturer - whether or not I'm paying licensing fees for the privilege.
tim

+1

I go for netti, altura type jerseys when they are on special. Sometimes uno as well. Not the highest quality, and perhaps not really 'decent looking' - just plain, non-descript. To my mind, I think I look like a resident of a residential aged care facility going on a little exercise walk. I.e., not particularly smart.

I'd love to wear a jersey one day that I really like. I don't begrudge those who wear team jerseys, mind. Just that I don't have any connection or much interest in most teams so to pay a premium for that doesn't make sense to me.

A graphic designer friend did the St Cloud kit, which looks pretty smart I think:

http://shop.saintcloud.com.au/product/s ... oud-jersey" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

snark wrote:If anyone can find a simple plain jersey for a reasonable price, I'm all ears .

Others have gone for these ones recently:
http://www.moremile.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They're a bit too plain for mine - I like misterhorsey's analogy of an aged care resident's walking kit , but each to their own.

I tend to default to black riding gear, because plain black (or moderately logo'ed black) is less naff-looking than most other plain colours IMO. But the safety police would have words to say about me riding pre-dawn (or after dark) in black kit

I just grabbed one of these:
http://www.lightinthebox.com/oqsport-10 ... 87505.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
...just for a bit of variety, and because for that price, I see no reason not to . But again, it's just another variant on the black thing.

Will advise on quality when it arrives. Don't hold your breath - I took the $2.50 slow-boat-from-china shipping method

tim

I got a short sleeve jersey and bib from Monton and honestly it fits me better than any other piece of cycling clothing I've got. I'm ~180cm, slim and M in both fits me perfectly.

Received my first kit from Monton today, L jersey & XL bibs.
REALLY happy with them, the fit has surpassed my expectations a country mile.
My only comment would be that the chamois is a little thin and as the kit is very black & white the white parts do have a kind of stain on them but nothing worth worrying about.

I thought I'd give some feedback after a few weeks of commuting use of my recent purchases, and previous use of other cheap short sleeve jerseys, cycling shorts.

Big W $20 top ($12 now I think) $35 shorts - loose fitting top, no features, but no issues either. Pants have the least padding of the 4 shorts I have, but no other problems.
Kathmandu cycling shorts, $50. 2nd most padding of the bunch, very minor defects showing, but no issues yet after a lot of use.
DX.com (monton or similar) $36 for replica kit. Top is full zip, 3 pockets, seems like decent quality, feels fine, looks great. Shorts are 3rd most padding, but still comfortable enough and no issues so far. Sizing on website worked well.
MoreMile, $75 for 3 tops and 1 shorts. Top is half zip, 4 pockets 1 with zipper, grip areas at bottom, some vent areas. Quality good but not perfect. Shorts have the most padding of all, and so far seem very nice compared with the other brands. Sizing from website worked well, standard Au sizing apparently.

Feedback on a Monton shopping experience:

1. After reading advice here selected the Singa Post option in order tog et it this side of Christmas 2013
2. After four weeks and no package, emailed Monton to find out what happened
3. Received confusingly worded Chinglish email telling em I should be looking at the Singa Post website for tracking - Singa Post showed no such parcel existed
4. Waited 48 hours: Abracadabra, package magically appears - posted the day before and 24 hours after I sent the hurry up.
5. Complain to Monton about paying extra for fast shipping only to have them forget about the order until I moaned - "why you complain to me? Check Singa post"

Still no sign of the jersey over a week later. Good luck to youse that are going that way, don't think i'll be using them again.

theunknowncomic wrote:Feedback on a Monton shopping experience:

1. After reading advice here selected the Singa Post option in order tog et it this side of Christmas 2013
2. After four weeks and no package, emailed Monton to find out what happened
3. Received confusingly worded Chinglish email telling em I should be looking at the Singa Post website for tracking - Singa Post showed no such parcel existed
4. Waited 48 hours: Abracadabra, package magically appears - posted the day before and 24 hours after I sent the hurry up.
5. Complain to Monton about paying extra for fast shipping only to have them forget about the order until I moaned - "why you complain to me? Check Singa post"

Still no sign of the jersey over a week later. Good luck to youse that are going that way, don't think i'll be using them again.

I had the same thing happen to me. First order late last year was fine, arrived in about ten days. This time around it took two months.

They said they sent them and gave me an incorrect tracking number. I ended up lodging a PayPal dispute and only then were they sent.

barefoot wrote:I just grabbed one of these:
http://www.lightinthebox.com/oqsport-10 ... 87505.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
...just for a bit of variety, and because for that price, I see no reason not to . But again, it's just another variant on the black thing.

Will advise on quality when it arrives. Don't hold your breath - I took the $2.50 slow-boat-from-china shipping method

Arrived already!

Seems to be pretty reasonable at first inspection. Fits well - not tight in the sleeves like a Monton-via-eBay Northwave knockoff I bought last year some time. Zipper jammed first pull, but then zipped up okay. I have my doubts about its long-term prospects, but we'll see.

I also have a $35 custom designed jersey on order from Flame Cycling. They're estimating a 30-day turnaround (catching up after Chinese New Year). Will give a review when it lands.

tim

Bakks wrote:

theunknowncomic wrote:Feedback on a Monton shopping experience:

1. After reading advice here selected the Singa Post option in order tog et it this side of Christmas 2013
2. After four weeks and no package, emailed Monton to find out what happened
3. Received confusingly worded Chinglish email telling em I should be looking at the Singa Post website for tracking - Singa Post showed no such parcel existed
4. Waited 48 hours: Abracadabra, package magically appears - posted the day before and 24 hours after I sent the hurry up.
5. Complain to Monton about paying extra for fast shipping only to have them forget about the order until I moaned - "why you complain to me? Check Singa post"

Still no sign of the jersey over a week later. Good luck to youse that are going that way, don't think i'll be using them again.

I had the same thing happen to me. First order late last year was fine, arrived in about ten days. This time around it took two months.

They said they sent them and gave me an incorrect tracking number. I ended up lodging a PayPal dispute and only then were they sent.

Yes I have had similar experiences as well with Monton but not involving Singa Post.

Ross wrote:

Bakks wrote:

theunknowncomic wrote:Feedback on a Monton shopping experience:

1. After reading advice here selected the Singa Post option in order tog et it this side of Christmas 2013
2. After four weeks and no package, emailed Monton to find out what happened
3. Received confusingly worded Chinglish email telling em I should be looking at the Singa Post website for tracking - Singa Post showed no such parcel existed
4. Waited 48 hours: Abracadabra, package magically appears - posted the day before and 24 hours after I sent the hurry up.
5. Complain to Monton about paying extra for fast shipping only to have them forget about the order until I moaned - "why you complain to me? Check Singa post"

Still no sign of the jersey over a week later. Good luck to youse that are going that way, don't think i'll be using them again.

I had the same thing happen to me. First order late last year was fine, arrived in about ten days. This time around it took two months.

They said they sent them and gave me an incorrect tracking number. I ended up lodging a PayPal dispute and only then were they sent.

Yes I have had similar experiences as well with Monton but not involving Singa Post.

My issues were with packages sent by EMS. I think the issue is with Monton, not the freight company, which is a shame because I think their products are great value for money.

You just need to hassle them early about it, it speeds up the time taken to get the gear in the mail.

And yes I second the value for money comments. I like my monton kit a lot, comfortable enough for over 100km. Can't say the same for other kit I've paid a fair bit more for!