Bicycle Day, a ride out in the open air

The day after is the hard part

Bicycle Day falls on 3 June, and most companies treat the day itself as the hard part: get people on bikes, take a photograph, hand out something with a logo on it. The hard part is the day after, when the branded t-shirt either goes into the wash and comes back out, or goes into a drawer and stays there for a year.

The arrangement

A Bicycle Day set is small: something to wear, something to drink from, something to carry it all in. It is ordered once, stored with us, then picked and shipped when the date is close enough to matter, so no department goes hunting for a supplier in the last week of May.

It is the least complicated thing we do, and it still goes wrong when the order arrives three days before the event.

The sports set

A t-shirt with the company logo and a pair of sports socks are the base of any active set, and the Hit Water Bottle 600 ml travels on the bike in the morning and sits on the desk for the rest of the day. The Clerk Sunglasses handle a June ride into low sun.

The sunglasses are the first item to disappear, usually inside a month, and we still put them in, because for the weeks they last they get worn every day. Not everything has to survive a year to be worth printing.

Bags for the actual commute

Anyone cycling to work carries a change of clothes, lunch, and a laptop, and a backpack takes all three. A gym bag works for the person who keeps shoes and kit at the office and rides in light.

We have talked clients out of the cheaper drawstring bag more than once, because it holds a t-shirt and not a laptop, and someone finds that out on a wet Tuesday. A bag that splits in the second month costs the brand more than the saving on the order was ever worth.

The items that outlast the day

Almost none of this is tied to a single date. A cap is useful on every summer ride and at every outdoor event after it, a water bottle goes to training sessions, walks, and commutes for the rest of the season, and a charging device in a bike bag is the thing nobody buys for themselves.

The charging device is nobody's favourite line on a quote, since it costs more than the socks and photographs badly. It is also the item still in the bag in September.

A message nobody has to read out

A company that hands out something usable on a bike is saying how it expects its people to live, and it says it without a single slide. We have made merchandise since 1991, and the pattern does not change: the items that carry a message are the ones people would have bought anyway.

The unflattering part is that a printed bottle does not make a company sustainable. It makes one commute less dependent on a car, and that is the honest size of it.

The few who keep riding

Companies that run Bicycle Day usually find that a few people keep riding afterwards, not most of the team but a few, and those are the ones still wearing the t-shirt in August. They are the reason the set is worth ordering at all.

Some of it changes how people get to work, and some of it just changes what they wear on the way.

Print method, sizes, and the calendar

Two decisions do most of the work, and the first is the print method: sublimation on polyester sportswear, screen print or transfer on cotton. Put the wrong one on the wrong fabric and the mark cracks after four washes, which arrives faster than the end of the season.

The second is sizes, so order the full range rather than the average, because the person who needs the largest size is the first to notice it is missing.

Then there is the calendar, and decorated apparel is not a next day product: if the date is 3 June, the conversation happens in April. Someone calls in the last week of May every year and we can often still do it, but it costs more and the choice narrows to what is already on the shelf.

Four items that earn a place in the set

The sections above are about the day itself, and these four go into most of the sets we build for it, chosen for the part of the year when a June morning is already behind everyone.

• sports socks: the least original item on the list and the one that gets worn the most, on the bike and everywhere after it.
• Hit Water Bottle 600 ml: 600 ml is enough for a commute in either direction, and the bottle ends up on the desk between rides.
• Clerk Sunglasses: the practical part of a summer ride, and the thing people are happiest to be handed even though it is the first to get lost.
• charging device: nobody asks for one, and it is still in the bike bag when the season is over.

Bicycle Day is a simple reason to change how one morning looks and to put the whole team on the same road for it. Add things people keep using after June, and the day does not end with the last kilometre.

A t-shirt that survives the wash. A bottle that ends up on the desk. A bag that holds a laptop. A print method that suits the fabric. A date early enough to leave room to work. That is our corner of the business, and the question underneath it is whether a company gets one photograph out of Bicycle Day or a team that still rides in September.