By Joanna Rowsell
Our team is supported by the clothing company Craft who supply us with our base layers for on the bike as well as our casual clothing. As any cyclist will know a good base layer is an essential piece of kit and can make a huge difference for riding in varying weather conditions.
In the winter months whilst training in some extremely cold temperatures, the Keep Warm base layers got a lot of use. These are long sleeved and made from a light weight but warming thermal fibres designed tokeep you warm and dry whilst exercising in cold climates. These are the warmest of the range and have a high collar to keep your neck warm too. Next is theZero range which are also long sleeved based layers but slightly thinner sothese got a lot of use by me in the early season races as they were good for keeping warm whilst not being too thick so didn’t feel restrictive. Another base layer which came in extremely useful in the early season was the Windstopper base layer. This has a Windstopper panel across the front to provide wind protection and then the rest of the base layer is made of the thermal fibres. I have this in the short sleeved version and I wore this a lot for early season racing when although the temperature was barely above zero with some icy winds, I didn’t want to wear a bulky thermal Windtex jersey, so instead I could wear this under a normal racing jersey but still have the benefits of the Windstopper across the chest area.
Thankfully summer is finally here and we can make use of the Stay Cool range! We have both short sleeved and sleeveless base layers fromthis range, which have been designed to keep you cool whilst exercising in warm conditions. They do this by using fibres which pull perspiration off the body in order to keep you cool. I also like the feminine fit of these women’s specific base layers.
Finally a professional team needs to look like a team off the bike as well as on the bike, and we have some great casual wear from Craft. We have black tracksuit bottoms which have a lovely feminine cut and then both black and white hoodies as well as black and white polo shirts and t-shirts. The only challenge is making sure we all coordinate our t-shirt colours each day!
