Women's Cycling Jerseys, Shorts, & Bibs
Well, hello everyone. We hope all of you in North America are starting to feel the air heat up as spring spreads its warmth across the land. While we feel very lucky to be based in Southern California, where 60 degrees constitutes a cold snap, we’re still very excited about the upcoming season.
That’s because we not only get to see the results of all the hard work you all put in during the winter, but also because we’re in the process of releasing and finalizing some new and exciting gear. We’d like to share some details on one of our projects, but before we do that, we have to give huge shout outs to all the athletes who raced recently. There were some epic performances out there and we’re honored to get to watch you all put it on the line for the first or the hundredth time!
Despite monsoon rain and brutal humidity, our own Hailey Manning put on another show at Ironman Texas as she won her age group. Katie Colville, Kristin Schwinger, Denise Hillier, and Barbara Perkins also put in top 10 performances, and we’re incredibly proud of and happy for them.
Hailey on her way to an Age Group Win
Katie setting a run PR at IMTX
We’re giving a Texas sized shout out to finisher Madeleine Harrison who had Heart and Courage on her mind during the race as she has a child who has had a heart transplant. Not to get too side tracked, but one of the amazing things about endurance sports is how the connection to causes and individuals is amplified when one is on the course.
We also want to recognize Emily Bucknell, who we met at the Slowtwitch/Rocklin Slowtwitch Roadshow, who completed her first triathlon over the weekend.
Now, if you’ll indulge us, we’d like to share a brief update on our high performance line called Zele by Coeur. As we’ve hinted on social media recently, we’ve been working on Zele for a while and it is designed to be absolute tops in terms of technical performance.
A few of the Zele by Coeur pieces during a recent photo shoot
As we created the line, we literally went to almost everyone we knew in the industry who might have insight into what makes a garment fast. The first step was to get fabric that would be ultra aerodynamic. The material used for in Zele is dimpled like a golf ball and we had to special order it from Switzerland. It’s dimpled because the indentations in the fabric actually keep the air around the garment smooth for a bit longer as you crank up the watts on the bike. This, in effect, makes you just a bit more slippery in the air as you mash your pedals.
The second big design element was to hide the zippers and smooth over seams where panels come together. Then, we added slightly longer sleeves on both our tops - the Zele Aero Triathlon Top and the Zele Speed Jersey. The benefit of having sleeves is that they offer more sun protection and they present more of that fast fabric to the wind. Finally, we had the material treated with something called “Cold Black” that is designed to make the fabric reflect more of the sun’s rays. While this alone won’t make you faster, it will keep you cooler and that should translate to a more comfortable athlete, which should translate into more speed.
The final step in the development process was to take the gear and get it tested by aerodynamic experts. That’s where ERO Sports came into the picture. ERO Sports is based in Carson, California just down the road from Coeur in Santa Monica. The velodrome at ERO is the only Olympic Caliber track in the U.S. They use the Air Athletics Track Aero System (“TAS”) to measure drag during actual rides in a Velodrome. Jim, who is the owner of ERO Sports explained the science behind the system and it made our heads spin. The main thing we heard was that he could tell us if the Zele gear is fast.
Jim had already told us that all other things being equal, a sleeved suit would undoubtedly be faster than a non-sleeved suit on the bike, so we brought along, what we were told, was the fastest sleeved tri top on the market today. The code name for the top was CS Lewis One and when the test rider was ready, she took off on the track and the data came pouring in.
After about 15 laps, we had our first data point. Jim explained that he would provide us a drag coefficient number and that the lower the number, the better. C.S. Lewis One had a drag number of .2496. Then the rider put on the Zele Speed Top and headed back out onto the track. We stared over Jim’s shoulder and peered so closely at the screen that we thought he might tell us to move away.
Fortunately, Jim is as patient as he is smart, and before long, he turned around and gave us the good news. The Zele Aero Tri Top came in at .2467! Just ever so slightly faster than the competition! Jim went on to explain that the numbers were very close and that the actual fit of the garment on an athlete’s body would have an impact on performance, but that there was no doubt, Zele was indeed lighting fast.
Before we knew it, our time in the velodrome was over and we headed back to the Coeur office to go ahead and let the factory know they could start production.
Now that the order is in, we’re making almost daily trips to the factory to check in on manufacturing. Right now, it’s looking like we’ll have the gear in July and we can’t wait.
Ok, thanks for indulging us...we were just so excited about the new line and wanted to share.
Now, we’ll get back to the more important business of watching and cheering as all of you train and race all around the globe.
Your friends at Coeur.