If you won't wear it in public, I saw go for it. Nothing to lose-especially if you don't like it.

Post before and after pics! :)

Great question about dying your tri suit.

RIT is a very poor choice because it is a dye meant for both protein fibers like wool and silk and plant fibers like cotton. The colors are not vivid, and you will probably be disappointed with the outcome.

To dye a manmade fiber like polyester, use an acid dye, like Dharma Trading’s dyes. You dissolve a very small portion of dye powder (like 5g) in 100g of hot water, and then add that mix to a pot of near-boiling water, (do this outdoors because you don’t want acid dye messing up your kitchen) then dip in your tri suit until it has absorbed all the dye, or won’t take any more.
Then, wearing heat-resistant gloves, wring the water out of the tri suit, put it in a plastic bag, squeeze out the air and knot the bag closed. Then steam the bagged suit by putting it on a steamer rack in a closed pot in your oven or stovetop for about 15 minutes. Take the bag out, and let everything cool down on its own time, like overnight. This whole steam/rest step sets the color, so don’t skip it.

Finally, open up the bag, remove the suit and rinse it in cold water. Then, what you will see is that the design you so dislike WILL STILL BE THERE, just in different colors than you started with. Say the design was yellow and blue. You decided to dye the suit red. You will end up with a purple suit (red&blue) with an orange design (red&yellow).

So, it may be destined for your trainer pain cave anyway.

The whole experiment shouldn’t set you back more than about $15, (dye, citrus acid, heat-resistant gloves, etc.) so have fun. Here is a link to the dyes, and remember get ACID dye.

https://www.dharmatrading.com/...kEAAYASAAEgLfQvD_BwE


For step-by-step instructions on basic dying, the Youtube tutorial “Dyepot Confidential” is helpful. It will show you the added ingredients and tools you need to transform your tri suit.

Have fun!

Sharon

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Sharon McN
@IronCharo
#TeamZoot
Clif Bar Pace Team 2003-2018

Sharon, this is one of the most helpful posts I have ever seen. Awesome information! And I'm not even remotely interested in doing this myself, just clicked on it randomly and I am very impressed at the knowledge.

OP, maybe if you try to dye it totally black the design will get muted and be ok?

Totally agree! I had no idea that someone would know so much about something that either would or wouldn't work (in my mind).

Great post Sharon!

Thanks! I agree with the others that yours's is a very informative post. So much so that I have no interest in doing that much work to change the suit :)

Thank you for the kind response.

I have been unravelling thrift store cashmere sweaters, dying and plying the yarn and knitting up new sweaters for many years, so I’ve learned a bit along the way. Happy to share.

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Sharon McN
@IronCharo
#TeamZoot
Clif Bar Pace Team 2003-2018