BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
Castelli global brand manager Steve Smith told BikeBiz.com:
"We’re very happy with the outcome of Eurobike and Interbike. While the overall mood of the shows seemed like bike shops are still worried about the situation, even if the high end cycling market is doing ok, the reception for Castelli’s new products was overwhelmingly positive.
"The sponsorship of Cervélo has had a big impact on our brand awareness and the same performance and quality are seen throughout our collection. About 90 percent of our shops are increasing their summer 2010 preseason orders over last year, citing excellent sell-through in this past season."
Castelli launched Bodypaint shorts at Eurobike. It’s called BodyPaint because it feels like it’s, well, you know, painted on.
The seat, crotch and legs are made from a single piece of fabric, eliminating all but one seam, which is placed on the front of the short, away from a saddle contact point.
Soren Jensen, Castelli’s global communications manager, said the shorts are made from just five components, and at Eurobike he demonstrated this with a cut-up pair of shorts in a see-through, double-sided panel.
Four years in development, the Body Paint shorts are made from ultra-thin compression Power Stretch Lycra fabric and feature a new seat-pad, the Progetto X2 which combines a soft, stretchy, seamless, bacteriostatic, next-to-skin layer to prevent chafing. Jensen claims this pad is so soft, a rider need not slap on any chamois cream to the nether regions.
The Italian company goes further, claiming the Body Paint pad will be "the softest thing to touch your private parts since you got out of diapers."
Steve Smith said the excitement around the BodyPaint shorts helped the brand get masses of press exposure the recent shows:
"We completely revamped our shorts offering and that seems to be leading the excitement, especially due to the positive reviews of our new Body Paint short and with the new and improved Free Aero Race bibshort. We’re currently trending towards a 25 percent increase in Summer 2010."
Castelli’s winter 2009 range is featured in this YouTube video.
In the UK, Castelli is distributed by Saddleback.
