Tour de Palm Springs: Cycling T-shirts for a cause

As I write this month’s article, we are usually running the Dolphin Cancer Challenge job. Bad news. Our client, Primal, didn’t get the merch order this year. It’s usually a big project and helps Q1. We can’t do much about that, but we do have another project that is new this year and is a biking event for charity as well.

Tour de Palm Springs

The Tour de Palm Springs is one of the largest and most festive cycling charity events in the U.S. Every year, 10,000 cyclists from nearly every state and several countries participate. Since 1998, with the help of thousands of volunteers, the Tour de Palm Springs has raised nearly $4 million and contributed to over 150 local nonprofit organizations. The original bike event in Palm Springs, California, had 5-, 15-, 25-, and 50-mile rides.

The first event, at the time called Spokes for Different Folks, featured 400 riders. (We kind of like the original name.) It raised a humble $20,000. After the first ride, the not-for-profit organization Coachella Valley Serving People In Need was established. The first official Tour de Palm Springs was the next year and included 1,000 riders and a 100-mile ride was added. By 2015, $180,00 was donated to 80 charities.

We’re not sure about a 100-mile ride. The shorter walk distances may be for us. Primal Wear, a three-plus decade customer, provides the merch for this and other biking events and are a sponsor. Primal is an aggressive cycling apparel brand. We handle the screen-printed apparel for them. We are lucky enough to make our contribution in this way.

Graphics & printing

Primal usually provides us vector art ready to separate. This time, however, was a bit different. Two designs were provided that looked as if they were traced using an automated tool. One image for white and black and one for watermelon. After opening new art boards in Illustrator and placing our designs in separate files, we could massage, or, in this case, rebuild the art. Besides the poor traces, upon further examination we had way too many colors.

For the cycle sunset image, we went to the Color Panel Options and selected Add Used Colors to place the colors in the design to our palette. We counted about 32. For practical purposes, we decided we would print eight screens, including two of white and black. We selected the colors that were most obvious and made them spot colors, grouped them together, and stuck them on their own layers. We could then identify the additional colors and put them on each layer of similar color.

Next, we tackled our white printer, or base plate. We used the base and black of the substrate to help create several colors of maroon by selecting these areas and applying variable halftone percentages. This also minimized stucco texture, keeping the inks smooth during wet-on-wet printing. The black show-through helped us build the darker tones. We added a gutter separating the colors on the base to keep it clean on press.

The sun was made up of six colors. We used a bright yellow from the image at 100% and printed a variable gradient of red on top. We selected the pieces of the sun individually and changed their opacity in the transparency option. We chose from top 10%, 20%, 40%, 50%, 80%, and 100% respectively. That gave us enough change from color to color and created that gold-to-orange-to-red blend with just the two screens.

The second image wasn’t quite as complicated. We still did a little work to the white printer. This was seven colors. The ink colors were a bit tropical and we completely knocked out the base from the red and orange to print on watermelon. We pushed the white back to 70% opacity for the blue and 80% on the green so they had some place to go and wouldn’t smear on press. We added our choke and gutters to the white between colors.

For the less complicated palm tree design, the orange screen was first on an N-228 screen mesh and printed directly on the garment, which would lift or split on the white printer which was next on an N-102. We flashed and then ran the dark red type direct as well as the green, and finally the blue palm tree wet-on-wet on N-272s. After flashing, we printed the highlight white and lastly yellow — also on N-272s.

Another challenge printing the sunset rider was the bright yellow on black. The white printer went on an N-102 mesh with a 20% EOM (emulsion over mesh) stencil for a deliberate ink deposit and ran 100% under that yellow. That alone wasn’t enough as this was a large run, and ink would likely reduce in opacity. We chose an athletic lemon yellow that had a lot of body.

The print order started with the mountain tops, which was the darkest red directly on the fabric and natural split on the white printer next in line followed by a flash. We printed three reds in a row, darkest to lightest. The first two darker tones went on N-272s to minimize ink deposit. We put the brightest color on lower mesh N-228 to help maintain the brightness. After flashing, we placed our yellow down, then a final flash followed by the last two colors, the halftone red and the highlight white.

The Tour de Palm Springs in Coachella Valley is set to return for its 27th year, promising another unforgettable weekend of cycling, community, and charitable giving. Taking place on Feb. 8 in downtown Palm Springs, this event has once again honored first responders and veterans with a variety of rides and walks suited for all fitness levels. This event touches the lives of many.