Ever wondered how you’d get the jersey you wanted out of your head and into reality? Pete tried it with a custom Wideopenmag jersey from Endura.
Endura offered to produce us a custom jersey and we jumped at the chance, only to spend most of the next few weeks wondering what on earth we’d put on it.
Photos by Pete Scullion.
Endura are better know for their weather-beating clothing and protection, but did you know that they’ll help you design and create your own custom jersey too? Pete was invited by Endura to come up with a custom Wideopenmag jersey and here’s how it happened.
The trickiest part of the whole process is deciding what you want… The sky is indeed the limit, as has been proven by any of the custom jersey’s Joe Barnes has produced and sold over the years. Then I had to decide whether I made a Pete Scullion jersey or a Wideopenmag jersey. The former would have some nod to Iron Maiden somewhere, whereas the latter would be led by our logo.
Option to go down the Wideopenmag route didn’t help narrow down the options in my head, but the old team colours of green, white and black kept recurring and The Matrix’s digital rain was the only thing that seemed to make any sense to me. Could we replace the digital rain code with the Wideopenmag logo, then stick some white logos in there across the chest and back?
With The Matrix idea submitted to David, the man who takes the ideas and forms them into workable designs, the only feedback to the original design was to increase the density of the now Wideopenmag digital rain. The first offering being a little thin, I felt the more layers and brightness of green, the better. Certainly in my head. How this would translate into a real world was yet to be seen.
The second draft looked way better, and honestly, I would have been changing the design for the sake of changing it… My inspiration had mostly fizzled out after the original Matrix idea so I didn’t have an awful lot left to offer after that.
From there, I was invited to Endura’s HQ in the Central Belt to see how these custom jerseys come together. All of the design, printing and sewing happens inside Endura HQ, so you know that you’re getting a UK designed and made jersey, regardless of how many you end up going for.
The first step once the design is signed off is to test the sublimation graphics to make sure the colours come out OK in real life. Stuart Laidlaw walks us through the process of the graphics being printed on possibly the largest Epson printer you’ll ever see. You’ll certainly not be throwing these out the window when they stop working like most inkjets.
From there the graphics are sublimated into the fabric, and this can be anything from MTB jerseys to road bibs, the full works. If Endura make it, they can make a custom version of it, and they’ve even custom sample garments made up almost like a patchwork quilt with all the various patterns they’ve produced as face masks for their employees during the pandemic.
First the fabric panels get cut out the big precision cutting machine, then they get placed on the print, then they go into the heat press for 60sec at 200 degrees Celsius, where the sublimation printing takes place. Then the printed individual garment panels get taken upstairs for sewing. All the kit is sewn by hand and even the silicone grippers are applied in-house.
All-in, it took about five weeks from pulling the original design idea out of my head, to getting the jersey into my hands. From there it simply a case of throwing it on and getting out on the bike in it. The size small Endura jersey has always been a good fit for me, and now I had a one-of-one custom version all to myself.
