Welcome to the second edition of Cycling Fashion Monthly, a column exploring the furthest reaches of this author’s superficiality – I mean fashion. This column (and its podcast incarnation) is about cycling fashion.
In the previous edition, it was not lost on me that the majority of aesthetically pleasing winter gear I recommended was also financially punishing. So this month I'd like to prove that my fashion taste is only slightly tied to the amount of money I am willing to spend on my cycling looks, I promise.
Also, obviously, I have not received any money or kit in exchange for recommendations – if I wanted free kit I would move to Girona and chase the influencer dream of marginal employment.
Finally, make sure to stick around for the end of the column, where I introduce a new “Roast My Take” section inviting you, dear reader, to share some hot fashion takes of your own.
The best looking kits you can get for $150 and up 👕
What qualifies as a reasonable price to pay for a jersey and a pair of bibs these days? I’m willing to pay upwards of $350-400 USD for a kit I’ll wear in the summer, and the amount goes up for kit worn when the temperature drops. To some this will seem a ridiculous amount but it is the price I am willing to pay to feed the insatiable appetite of my two-wheeled vanity. Yet with brands like Pas Normal Studios, MAAP, Rapha and others offering just a jersey for $200-250 USD, sticking to that already high amount only seems possible during a sale.
With prices like that, it makes me sometimes laugh at the idea of making cycling more accessible. But then I remind myself that my first “road” bike was a used steel Fiori I bought for $250 CAD, and my first pair of bibs were a hand-me-down pair of Voler shorts. So it got me wondering what options are available for the cyclist that’s interested in cycling fashion but unable or unwilling (i.e. smarter with theirmoney) to pay the increasingly premium prices on kit.
I’m happy to report there are some good options out there at decent prices, which you’ll find below. That said, I do love spending money – we live on a rock floating in a void in space, nothing matters, etc. So I’m also going to share some pieces I’d be willing to splurge on.
$150 USD🫰
Heavy Pedal Attack Jersey & Bibs: $146 USD/£81/$160 AUD total
If you’re not familiar with this Arizona-based brand, it’s worth checking their full collection as they have as many simple colour options as they do wild designs. While this isn’t the cheapest kit out there, it is some of the best value I’ve found from a brand not tied to a French department store behemoth. However, I haven’t decided if the fact this jersey reminds me of the old Rock Racing team is a selling point or not.
Spexcel Summer Lightweight Bibs & Top Quality Cycling Jersey: $62.98 USD/£43.56/$81.80 AUD total
Look, I don’t actually recommend anyone buy kit from Spexcel via AliExpress. The durability is questionable and you never know if your order will be delivered in four weeks or four months. But I had to get ahead of anyone popping off in the comments about how their dirt-cheap Spexcel kit performs just as well as the bigger brands. Having owned one of their jerseys, I know the only thing it performs well at is permanently retaining the stench of BO.
The Black Bibs: $60 USD/£34/$66 AUD
I’m sharing this bib-only option for two reasons. 1. Most of us would likely agree you don’t need kit to go for training rides, but I’ll always recommend to new cyclists to start with a pair of bibs. 2. If you’ve spent any time on either of the subreddits r/velo or r/CyclingFashion, you’ll know that there is always someone that recommends these. Plus, they're black, which goes with everything.
$300 USD 💰
Universal Colours Mono Short Sleeve Jersey & Mono Bib Short: $300 USD/£235/$510 AUD total
If you are fed up with cycling fashion’s recent obsession with earth tones, look away. Otherwise, the Sigma Sports-backed brand Universal Colours has a wide variety of solid colour jersey options that can make for a fun look paired with one of their bibs. Think of it as the aesthetics of Pas Normal without the abnormal credit card bill.
$500 USD 🤑
Team Dream Glory Glory EOE Jersey & über Pro Boney Bib: $343 USD/£272/$547 AUD total
While not much more expensive than the last category, the sheer difficulty of ordering Team Dream kit before your size sells out must give a warm fuzzy feeling or pretentiousness. At least I assume so, since I’ve never got what I wanted in time. Luckily I still feel pretentious.
Attaquer OrbKnit Race Jersey & ULTRA+ Climbers Bib Short: $500/£400/$640 AUD total
I know I said aesthetics are more important than performance, but the material on this jersey does really look fast. And looking fast adds 15 watts according to my untested, unscientific calculations. I mainly want the bibs because the name is in ALL CAPS, which sounds fast.
Into The Canal 🛒
With it being mid-February, the Zwift riding regimen is starting to take its toll – not so much on my legs but rather on my tolerance for the kit options available for my avatar. You might be surprised to know that I care very deeply about curating my kit even when I am on Zwift. I don’t mean what I wear while on the trainer; I am talking about what kind of outfits I can create for my mind-numbing laps of Tempus Fugit. That is why this month, I am throwing the Zwift kit collection into the canal. (If you are new to the column and don’t understand that sentence, basically I have a habit of metaphorically throwing things I don’t like into the Lachine Canal located in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. I don’t really know why).
I will caveat that there are a few decent kit options available on Zwift, but they are all from MAAP and they are all tied to completing a group ride event or race of some kind. That means everyone who completes the ride gets the outfit. How am I supposed to feel like a unique, style-conscious cyclist by constantly wearing the same digital kit as countless others? I want to see some limited-edition kit releases that have a completely fake limited supply, or some extremely ‘expensive’ kit that costs like five million drops in the Drop Shop.
It is only in Watopia that I can afford a Mosaic bike, so I see no reason why the Drop Shop shouldn’t also have the equivalent of the $500 kits I listed earlier in this piece. I want to use my Zwift sweat drops to ‘buy’ kit to show off my impeccable taste, not to simply wear kit that reflects the fact I completed a sponsored event. I certainly would ride Zwift more frequently if I could spend those sweat drops as irresponsibly as I spend my real money. What better motivation to ride hundreds of kilometers through Watopia than waiting until I get a compliment on my virtual kit from a D.I.R.T. (Dad Indoors Riding a Trainer)?
While we’re on the subject, when are we getting an Escape Collective kit on Zwift? Make it happen, Wade.
Up Camillien ⛰️
This month, I’m giving a Camillien to sleeveless mesh base layers. (For new readers: this is the opposite of chucking something in the canal, but still referring to a geographic feature of Montréal: the Camillien-Houde climb).
Is there a more versatile piece of kit for a cyclist who rides outside and on the trainer indoors? No, I declare there is not. In my experience, they can be used on outdoor rides in temperatures from the low single digits Celsius all the way up to days that I would venture to call "hot." And then, once I have retreated to my painless cave (zone 2 only) to ride the trainer, they make for a great warm-up top while fans blast me with cool air. It is a near-perfect layer to grab when you are worried about being just a little too cold while not having to worry about becoming terribly overheated.
More importantly, from an aesthetics perspective, nothing looks cooler than riding uphill with a fully unzipped jersey. The mesh base layer allows those of us, like me, that are modest, to feel comfortable unzipping without having to worry about showing excessive nipple. Plus, nowadays there are plenty of options out there for mesh base layers with fun colours or interesting designs – you are no longer stuck with a boring old logo stamped near the collar on white or black material. I’m not sure if Rapha was the first brand to make base layers I was actually excited about, but they are certainly the first ones I can remember buying. In fact, I still have three of their mesh base layers in rotation, each printed with a different French phrase that I cannot read and therefore believe makes me cool and mysterious.
Roast My Take 🔥
New for this month, I’d like to invite all reading this column to tell me I’m wrong. I’ve just spent 1,000-odd words on why my aesthetic preferences and subjective opinions are the correct ones, so now I’d like to hear what you think. I’ll share and respond to the best responses from the comments in the next column. To give us an idea of how it will work, I’m going to share some from the first edition:
Jake Davidson: "What happened to all the bright colors and fun patterns? I'm sick of these muted colors."
I ask this same question all the time, even as I continue to gravitate towards muted earth tones.
Danielle R: "I've gone back to wearing casual wear instead of the full cycling kit. I don't live in an area where there's a weekly group ride so I get out when I can and sometimes that means Jorts with vans and a skank tank. No more crazy tan lines y'all."
Just wait for the column about my cycling tan lines tanning regimen.
Benjamin Reynolds: Good god are these pieces of kit extortionately expensive.
Yes.
Until next time ...
That’s it for this edition Cycling Fashion Monthly. Got some hot fashion takes of your own? Drop them in the comments here, or you can reach me on Instagram @cyclingfashionweek or @warrenhaas.
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