Site Feature: Store
Posted on 11 September 2012.Back To Blog
Over the last few years we've received countless requests for Ride With GPS branded merchandise. While we have wanted to provide this for awhile it has taken us some time to get to a point where we could. With our efforts of expanding this year we have been able, finally, to start offering some Ride With GPS products.
You can see all of the products we are offering on the Products page. But, we wanted to take a few minutes and give a bit more background information on each product.
Jersey | $80.00 (at the time of this post, on sale for $75)
All of our cycling apparel is currently being manufactured by Castelli. We choose to go with Castelli in particular because we have personal experience with their products and feel like that experience allows us to ensure that our Ride With GPS products are of the highest quality and will last for a long long time. Additionally, we like the fact that Castelli is based out of the Pacific Northwest and that their products are manufactured in the USA. We would like to offer some cycling appareal at a cheaper rate, but ultimately felt like we didn't want to sacrifice quality for cost. Also, Castelli's printing is top notch!
Our cycling apparel has been designed by Ryan Wilcoxson. Ryan is a good friend of ours from Southern Oregon and is an avid cyclist and a strong cat 2 bike racer! Ryan's full time gig is as a video and graphic designer for Definition LLC which is a small firm based out of San Francisco and his recent work includes a new community beer review site, Beer Citizen. If you enjoy a good cold beer then you should checkout the site! Ryan has also designed kits for Service Course Velo and Sappo Hill Cycling Team, shown below.
We are working with Ryan to get bibs and other cycling apparel items designed and available as soon as possible.
T Shirts | $15.00
Our t shirts are made by American Apparel and printed by Inkbrigade. We chose these two vendors because Inkbrigade is a local Portland, Oregon company and American Apparel shirts are made in the USA. Both options seemed like a good fit! (get it?)
The design of the t-shirts was a collaborative effort by the three of us. We're really happy with how these came out now that they are printed!
Water Bottles | $10.00 & $13.00 (at the time of this post, on sale for $8 & $11)
For water bottles we set out looking for a bottle that offered two things: 1) no taste and 2) durable drinking spout. From our testing and experience the best option proved itself to be the Specialized Purist. These new bottles made by Specialized are the best bottles we have ever used! They are a non-leaching, clean tasting, and flexible bottle with an awesome drinking spout. Plus, Specialized does a great job with the printing. We didn't feel that there was a higher quality bottle we could find, and by putting in a large order we're able to offer them at a great price.
We are offering the bottles in two sizes:
The design for the bottles, like the shirts, was a collaborative effort by the three of us and again, we got lucky on the designing front as they turned out great!
OSM Maps for Garmin GPS Units | $25.00
On our help pages for the Garmin Edge 705 and the Garmin Edge 800 we have been recommending the use of OSM Maps (OpenStreetMap) as a substitute for the Garmin City Navigator maps that come bundled with those units if you pay a bit extra. Many people don't purchase the bundled version of their GPS unit, and end up without any basemaps. This is too bad because then they can't look at a map, their unit is unable to do any turn-by-turn routing, and they're left with a GPS unit that really isn't living up to its potential. The OSM maps are great in most areas, and you can get them on your unit for free.
The problem is that it can be a bit of a technical challenge to download the right maps, get the right kind of SD card, and load the maps onto the SD card in the right way. We are still happy to help people do this themselves, but are now offering to do the work for you: we'll preload a card with the maps you need, and all you have to do is insert it into your Garmin GPS unit.
If you have any questions about Site Feature: Store email us at info@ridewithgps.com
