Independent work · Africap × Le Col
The Tour de Lunsar is a two-day race in Sierra Leone, often called West Africa’s noisiest bike race.
Le Col has made the winners’ jerseys since 2019. For 2026 it handed design control to Africap, a Sierra Leonean brand that makes cycling caps from Ankara wax fabric.
Africap’s caps already told the story. Ankara patterns carry meaning, and riders already wore the caps. The jerseys should speak the same language, so cap and jersey read as one kit.
Start from traditional Ankara prints and make them modern. The approach was mine. Africap brought the prints and the knowledge of what they mean, some of them from its best-selling caps, and I abstracted each one into a new pattern: the Hirondelle cap’s swallows became the orange jersey. The yellow leader’s jersey takes Sierra Leone’s green, white and blue in pastel shades, and the flag sits on every jersey.
Each pattern starts from a traditional print, so the jerseys had a story before anyone raced in them. Abstracting the prints made them modern sportswear without losing where they came from, and building some on the caps made the race kit and the caps riders already wear belong together. Each was printed as a flat panel before cutting and sewing.
The words are local too. We lek fo bluff: we like to show off. The left sleeve carries a Krio idiom for finishing what you start. Africap supplied the lines; I set them into the kit. The orange jersey, for the most aggressive rider, is named Wasa Wasa, after the rallying call of the late Winston Crowther, a former president of Sierra Leone cycling.
Winners wear them on the podium and in every photo afterwards. Bold pattern and Tour de Lunsar across the chest make sure each picture says where it was taken.
The approach was mine, and I designed the patterns and the jerseys. Africap brought the source prints, its knowledge of Ankara and the Krio phrases. I worked with Africap’s founder, Mohammad ‘Hammer’ Sesay, and in open dialogue with Le Col. Africap is the public face of the design, which is right: it’s their story to tell.
The jerseys were raced at the 2026 Tour de Lunsar on 18–19 April and awarded to the category winners. Le Col told the design story in its journal: Behind the design.