These are the most ordered items in 2013 and their respective prices
Cycle Jacket - £95
Cycle Top - £45
Gilet - £70
Monaco - £42
Tri-shorts - £33
Arm Warmers - £20
Women's Tank - £55
Race Cap - £12.50
There will be no order going through late 2014; instead it will move to early 2015 and is intended to be
1 February - I will start a thread which will, in effect, open the order book. This will be the time for you to register the kit you would like to order
28 February - The order book will close. There will be no more additions to the order book after this time. If you haven’t registered your order on the thread, you will not be included in the order.
1 March - I will approach LG for a full quote based on the numbers given in the thread
Early/mid March - prices will be published, payment details given, and sizes and postal address requested
31 March - deadline for payments to be made
1 April - contract signed with LG
Points to note
Comments
My only question is regarding pushing the order date back. People start racing from early to mid May and their kit may not arrive in time. Is there any room to negotiate on the new proposed kit order time line to make it slightly earlier?
With the amount of kit in circulation if someone desperately needs kit there's nearly always some available to be sold on or loaned?
I think the change will help streamline the process and reaffirm what the kits for. The order process has become a monster and a lot of issues in recent years, not least people putting their names down, being difficult to contact, ignoring instructions or even arguing about the process.
They need to train in their kit as well for some of their long bikes and runs to know where to bodyglide....more races are earlier now as well.........
but if this uis the easiest time frame then fair enough....
I suppose their is always the option if someone is desperate for a piece of kit they can do what has been done in the past and put an order for kit together themselves......I know thats what I ended up doing
If the kit arrives for May, just how many people either don't already have kit, don't have access to borrow kit and are racing before June?
The new process is about making it easier for the kit fairy and cutting the process back to basics, not catering for the minority of ifs and maybes.
What's the turnaround time? Is it 8 weeks or 12 weeks? I would have thought any kit order should arrive in time for the start of the season and my concern is that this won't. I have the fullest respect for Schmunks and the job she is doing but I do feel that the order should arrive in time for the start of the triathlon season (by which I mean start May.) Working to the above timeframe means that any slips in manufacturing or hold ups in shipping from Canada might mean people don't get their kit in time (ie kit may not arrive until June.)
Like I said, would it be possible to negotiate this time frame please?
I agree with the girls, bringing it forward even a month gives ample time for delays, for those newbies to get themselves sorted, for those with earlier IM races or races in the run up to get the kit ... I am all for cutting down the workload for someone who is volunteering time, effort and frustrations but at the end of the day it is still a service to those who want to race in the old black n yeller
Cougs you'd get odd looks regardless quite frankly
cougs you never done it??? Unfortunately ive done it on a number of occasions and you certainly do get some very dodgy looks, especially when you go out in the full aero look with helmet etc and then have a mechanical... That was not a very fun walk home!!! Luckily i wasnt to far away
Meldy - you're on my list...
I'll get me coat
Just as a note, and nothing against you Schmunks, I take exception to the inference that the kit is only for those racing IM. I am not allowed to do any more IMs since my hip replacement and my race season begins every year with a sprint in mid-May followed by a June Oly.
Cougs - actually I wear my tri shorts in bike training all the time,they are the most comfortable bike shorts I own.
i wore them for all the training for my first ironman as they were the only trishorts i owned...
my first tri is 11th May each year
Looks good here, weeds out all the people that appear on the forum, put their name down for kit and then when the order is sorted 8 months later can't be found and then put some of the orders in jeopardy.
Lets not turn this into a can i wear kit to train/race a 5k/commute/do the gardening/pop to shops thread.
... you mean you dont ??
I agree. Can the dates all go back one month?
I hate to do this - but I'm forced to agree with FF! Most of us have enough kit to wear for those early races, and if I remember correctly, the turn around for kit orders last time was only four weeks or so - plenty of time for shiny new kit to arrive for the big summer races!
Having specific dates for ordering should make it easier for everyone and as Schmunkee is the only one who can be bothered to do this (with some hindrance from Barley ) I guess its up to her when its easiest to do it!
In Schmunks defence, most people are calculating their own version of the "right time" based upon delivery/receipt of kit and their own personal target race. With the kit list being the monster that it is, there is never going to be an optimum. Pulling the kick off date back up the calendar clashes with Christmas, pre-Christmas, and goodness only knows what else that is going on in our dear lady's life.
Be grateful that there is another offer of a kit list being considered, and remember that Meldy is always right, except when Schmunks says otherwise.
I wear my Gillet/ jacket and get some odd looks BUT at least the half blind feckers are looking
All the posters, so far, on this thread are experienced Pirates. Haven't you all got enough Pirate kit?
Would I be too much of a heretic to suggest that if Schmunks organises it, she gets to say when it's done?
So, I'm with Foo and Raf! If new Pirates can't get their arses in gear to get the kit in a timely fashion they'll have to beg, borrow or steal it! Plenty of kit out there!
I seem to end up with all Rafi's kit so I have no opinion as to how the the kit order process runs!
Probably just watching out for flying water bottles.....
Raf and siggy agreeing with me??...can't have that, will have to change my opinion now.
I agree that Meldy, Flyers and myself probably don't need any kit anyway, so it makes no odds to us when the kit comes. However, I stand by my comment that it simply makes sense for kit to arrive in time for the start of the triathlon season. It's only starting the process a month earlier, would that be so bad???
Regarding the comment that it's Schmunks who is organising so what she says goes, well yes, obviously, that goes without saying but as Meldy also said, one would hope that someone who is doing something voluntarily would also be doing it with some degree of empathy for the community with whom they are working.
I don't mean that to sound snippy, I can't work out how to express it a different way, because the mirror very much isn't true. The community don't afford Schmunks the same respect by taking responsibility for their own order, responding to messages etc. hence her getting so fed up. Such is the way of the world
And i know this will probably not get a great response......but.
Should this thread be "Sticked"...will stop the weekly "How do i get kit" threads being started.
Not like we have any stuck threads in the tri forum is it.
What he leaves on your bedroom floor is none of our business.
That may be true but there is no excuse for messiness!
Sorry
Ouch!
To bring the kit order forward a month means that the admin is done is February and it doesn’t seem possible that I can fit the admin in for it any earlier than March and so I would like the opening date to stay as 1 February.
I appreciate this means that kit won’t arrive for the very start of the season, but this only affects a tiny minority. Added to this, I feel there is sufficient kit floating around for people to borrow if necessary
I have been doing the kit for the last four orders and have seen the volumes increase five-fold in all this time. I believe it has always been fault-free on my part and I have been as accommodating as possible when people have asked me to be.
I would like the opening date to stay as 1 February so that I can give it my full attention as and when tasks fall due.