earthbeat • newsletter avril 2023
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earthbeat • newsletter april 2023

april, you are already there
almost a third of the year escaped
and with it almost all of the spring classics.

soon the sun, the heat and the darling shade.

what are they doing, at this precise moment, these trees under which we will find a moment of respite during the outings that we are dreaming about?

100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000 or even Gogolplex (do you have the ref?) times…
… on the loom you will put your work back … and you will never play at who, of you or of Time, is stronger

an adage that fits us like a custom bike

it's like a chorus that starts to turn into a refrain but indeed, it will still take a little patience before seeing what our 1st collection looks like and being able to place an order.

if you follow us on Instagram and Facebook you may have learned that we had planned to do 2 shoots in April and that unfortunately we had to postpone this step in order to put our work back on the job and that the jerseys fall as expected on shorts that do the same.

this incident validates one of the founding principles of this adventure: proximity.

as product development draws to a close, it's nice to realize that every time we go to work on our garment shop premises, we're making leaps and bounds, not only on the products but also and especially in consolidating the close relationship with our partner .

we know that this closeness is irreplaceable.

it is what allows us to weave the bonds of trust which, in the long term, will be the envy of seamstresses, the "little hands" as they say, who want our products to live up to your expectations and not be a "folder" among the others.

and this reinforces our choice of local and short circuit : could we go every week to Portugal, Lithuania or China with the same ease as we go to Rouen from Paris?

so yes, it takes time and it requires perseverance.

to refuse to concede ground to quality, finish and details which, we are convinced, will make the difference, we must accept to leave it to time!

concretely, where are we?

what changes needed to be made?

on the shirt :

  • change of zip for a YKK injected closure: more flexible, lighter and easier to operate when riding than the previous nylon closure
  • adjustment of the bust and back lengths in order to fall right on the shorts and to have optimal comfort in the aero position, lying on the frame
  • adjustment of pocket placement and height

on the shorts :

  • width of the straps on the front
  • change of fabrics on the waistline with a magnificent black striped mesh, made in France, of course!
  • revision of the curve of the main fabric at its junction with the mesh for a more refined aesthetic rendering.

there are still a few details of placement of logos, reflective material and other labels and they will be great!

see you in 2 to 3 weeks for the photos and in the meantime, we will go through a 3D studio so that it expresses a 1st version of the products and allows us to simulate all the variations!

what will these jerseys & shorts look like?

this collection is made up of bib shorts and 2 jerseys tribute to Pierre Soulages + 1 jersey which you can customize one of the colors.

1. g.one stained glass

the stained glass jersey offers a set of black & ivory blocks in homage to the work of Pierre Soulages on the stained glass windows of the abbey of Conques.
the silky, ultra-light and abrasion-resistant fabrics are made in France and dyed at their place of manufacture, in Ardèche.

2. g.one ultrablack

this jersey pays direct homage to the painting that made Pierre Soulages famous, from 1979 and its “outrenoir” phase.

it is made of the same materials as the previous one, a mixture of polyamide and elastane woven in Ardèche and recognized for its softness, its bi-directional stretch but also by the thread it gives seamstresses a hard time during assembly :)

 

3. g.one customizable color

the drawing and the design are identical and you will have the choice of color on the belly and upper back blocks - we discuss with the workshop so that you can also choose the color of the pockets;)

here are examples of what this could give with simulations based on the colors of the brand.

NB: for the shorts , we prefer to wait for the latest versions to be able to show sketches or directly photos insofar as we have significantly changed their design.

we can just tell you that we listened to you and it could be customizable too 😉

gapettes are coming soon too!

always with local and quality sourcing, we will offer you gapettes made with Vera Cycling - search for styles below!

watch out for your eyes… Céline is currently working with her materials supplier to find a purple as dazzling as on the models and a white as off-white as that of the stained-glass windows of… Soulages!

earthbeat gapettes for road, gravel or indoor cycling

we are also currently working on the development of 2 products that you wanted as a priority

  • 1 road jersey for hot days
  • 1 long-sleeved baselayer for the off-season

and you can always give your opinion on the main features you expect from each of these 2 products via the quick questionnaires available via the links below 👇

intense heat road jersey
fall/winter baselayer

and Soulages painted with light

why take inspiration from Pierre Soulages and how to draw inspiration from him to design cycling jerseys and shorts?

in two words: because he put light on the canvas and let it create colors that he did not use, since from 1979 he only used black.
and it reminds us little of what the wind does with the grass that borders the roads and paths we cycle through...

we will go into detail elsewhere and we will talk about the why and how, but in a little more than two words:

Pierre Soulages, who lived 102 years, has always revolved around black.
from his earliest years, when he drew his snowy landscapes in ink, he placed the black, leaving the reserve (which is not drawn) to express the white of the snow.
later, in 1979 precisely and while he was, by his own admission, in a pictorial impasse, he discovered by chance the technique that was going to make him open an incredible breach: that of painting with light.

by working his paste of black pigments on the surface of his canvases, playing on the textures and gestures of his brushes or sticks, he realized that he could, with the help of a technically monochrome canvas, deliver to the eye of the beholder a much richer interplay of colors, the result of the incidence of light: Outrenoir was born!

Initially, it was the stained glass windows he made for the abbey church of Conques that we retained on the brand moodboard and for this first collection, in particular because they are the sublime passage point for the light that comes to us. … from you know where!

Unlike the usual stained glass windows, those that Soulages made in Conques do not show anything, there is only the light which filters and gives a thousand shades to the glass according to the time of day.
as in his paintings, his stained glass windows do not feature any subject .
thus the work of Soulages leaves us alone to decide what it is and the path to take to find meaning in it.
by indicating nothing that is familiar to him to the viewer, he makes it a central element of his work: without him, the canvases, the stained glass windows are wobbly.
Soulages thus considered the triptych spectator, canvas, painter as inseparable and constitutive of the work itself .

each look at one of his paintings makes it possible to constitute the work, a work.

on our bikes, do we do anything else?

splitting the nature of our track, our cycling gesture transports our gaze and constitutes with the landscape and the light which reveals it, the essential triptych at this unique, original moment.

in an upcoming post, we'll explain how we brought some Soulages into the 1st road collection :)

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Boris, the smiling man who wanted to cycle to Norway