Cyclist
In the Drops: Restrap backpack, The General Classification clothing, Bissini socks, Styrkr gels and bars, and hot stuff
It’s late June at a cycling magazine so that can only mean one thing: turning on my out-of-office, hauling my keister down to the west country and settling in at Cider corner for Le Tour de Glastonbury. I promise I’ve been meaning to cycle there every year but the excuses keep conveniently showing up.
But seriously, the Tour de France is almost upon us and it means business serieux. Unfortunately, Robyn has had to catalogue the reemergence of the D-word this week (no not Saturday’s headliner Dua Lipa) as EF – lords of peloton morality and gatekeepers of truth and purity – delete Andrea Piccolo’s website profile and chuck him off the pink bus in light of his hormone ferrying. She’s also dug deep into the semantics of the underdog to investigate who in 2024 can possibly claim that moniker among this star-studded TDF start line.
For all the riders who haven’t been unceremoniously pétanqued into la poubelle, what they get up to will be very visible and very televised. Ewan has got you covered for all your Tour de France viewing needs. Still in mourning for his noble Scotsmen, who conspired to leave Germany as planned before the knockout stages to get back in time for the general election, he’s also somehow managed to type out what it really takes to do a Giro-Tour double on his slippery tear-stained keyboard. And that brings me onto the pirate himself and Giles Belbin’s summary of the seventh rider to complete the Giro-Tour double. Makes me feel sunburnt just looking at the uncovered pate.
Andy Turner has been busy robing and disrobing out in the back garden, with reviews of bib shorts from Assos, Pas Normal Studios, Le Col, Cafe du Cycliste, Sportful, Santini and Q36.5 all hitting the site.
Now it’s time to slide off the safety of the hoods and into the drops. Wishing you all a very grand depart.
Restrap Roll Top Bag
Backpack producers, more so than many, must have been delighted when the pandemic concluded and people started commuting into their offices again. A whole swathe of the bag-buying populace entombed in their studies and living rooms, denied the motive for on-person storage solutions.
Well, those days are over now and it’s bag season every day of the year.
If you’re on the lam or disposing of bulky bits of evidence or looking to replace your red and white handkerchief wrapped around a stick, perhaps the 40L Restrap Rolltop will be of interest, but 22L is perfectly sufficient for my needs.
It’s made from waterproof TPU material, without being sold as totally waterproof, and features enough handy compartments, zips, and straps to keep you endlessly tinkering with your setup. You can access your laptop and the valuables section without opening the main rolltop compartment. Plus it’s vegan so everyone can have a slice.
Restrap is based up in Yorkshire, which minimises transportation miles, and products are covered by a lifetime guarantee against defects. This bag also comes in a dazzling white. Personally, I don’t trust myself – in tandem with my sworn hatred of mudguards – to keep that looking good for even a few days on the effluent sloshing alleyways that pass for London’s road network.
- Buy now from Restrap (£184.99)
The General Classification Clothing
Clothing is an outward expression of our personalities. Even if you opt out and dress, instead, in whatever rags you find by the side of your local dual carriageway; that too is a (very revealing) expression of your personality. There’s no escaping it.
Clothes are of paramount importance if you find yourself – as many young parents in their 30s do – being thrust into rooms full of strangers every few days, looking about four hours short on sleep and generally in siege mode at the prospect of singing nursery rhymes on the vomit-flecked floor of a library.
Short of wearing an EF jersey, or (god forbid) a football shirt, donning clothes with subtle and stylish (imho) nods to the thinking person’s sport of choice – cycling – is a very good idea, and acts like a lo-fi algorithmic filtering magnet.
Before you know it, in response to your acoustic vibe-o-meter, mums and dads (the good ones) are flocking towards you to assess whether you’re a highlights browser who doesn’t know their G from Derek Gee, or a full, embargo-busting, pit-lane peering, time-trial watching, extreme-weather-protocol poring, watt-shaving Lycra aficionado.
Sorry, I’ll get to the point. With riffs on Cinzano, Marlboro, aperitivos, Le Grand Départ, the high mountains, DNFs and La Flamme Rouge as well as a vintage jersey section (2000 Atak Sport Astana jersey anyone?) The General Classification has a bountiful array of conversation-starting garms. Plus, it’s sustainable and made to order so pretty much guilt free.
I’m a particular fan of the ‘My Mind is in the Mountains’ T-shirt, which hopefully raises a few smiles from the people behind me as I clean up yet another scatological mid-rhyme disaster from the library floor.
- Buy now from The General Classification (£39.95)
Bissini socks
If I were rich, I wouldn’t be commandeering a private jet to fly me to far-flung parts of the globe. No sirree. My one and only luxury (I promise) would be to wear a fresh pair of white socks every single day of the year. Most vitally, every day that I was setting my well-heeled foot upon my bicycle it would be sheathed in the milkiest of milky white cotton.
Bissini is a multi-generational family-run hosiery business that has its roots in the cycling heartland just outside of Venice. Yarn for the Bissini calzini (that’s ‘socks’ to the non-Italians) is sourced from Bologna and Bolzano while the company also has a base in London.
It’s a pleasingly simple range. Sure, you can pick up some formal dress socks from Bissini if that’s your bag, as well as off-road and running socks, but I’m only here for the purest of pure white alpine foot huggers – with some latitude for a cheeky minty number and a Café du Cycliste-inspired hooped edition.
Alicia B, creative director and COO of Bissini, says the company uses older machinery to create a finer and denser sock – something I can very much believe based on the delightful feel of the material.
Unfortunately, my windfall hasn’t arrived yet, so I’m laundering my Bissinis with the rest of the great unwashed. I only wear them on el scorchio days, and even when they’ve been roundly doused in my ghost-strength suncream, the whiteness has remained at pleasingly young-rider levels of white.
- Buy now from Bissini (£20)
Styrkr Gel50 Dual-Carb energy gels
I was converted to vowel-phobic nutrition königins Styrkr back in 2022 on the last day of an ultra race. They used to sell gels in some heinous-looking ~100g sachets. I necked one of these battery-acid-tasting caffeine grenades and it propelled me through the final 100km when my legs were already folded up in a bed somewhere. I’m still grateful.
Sizes are now down to a more digestible 72g with the new Gel50s, which deliver 50g of carbs per sachet. The contents are vegan and tested for WADA banned substances (phew!) and taste legitimately delicious. The utterly unspellable Styrkrthon bars (let me just check that spelling again) provide 22g of protein without a bombardment of sugar, and they too are vegan and gluten free. The chocolate, peanut and caramel flavouring is a winning formula and reminds me of another pretty famous and similarly named bar – (for boomers and aged millennials only.)
I can also vouch for both as excellent for chucking into your overnight bag if you’re planning on birthing a child anytime soon. I think my girlfriend made it through a dozen during that particular sportive.
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What we’re into this week: Habanero Tabasco and Sainsbury’s jalapeños
If you’re running a cash-cow dynasty like Tabasco, you could be forgiven for resting on your laurels. There’s a bottle of the stuff in every café, restaurant and household in the Western world. In some larders the diddy bottles remain a dazzling ruby red, used frequently and frequently replaced. In other houses the red fades to a tired brown, the sell-by date disappears into the preceding decade, and unsuspecting visitors drip a separated orange liquor that’s fermented into around 15% ABV onto their scrambled eggs.
But rest these Louisianans do not, and the Habanero edition of Tabasco – tricky to find and even trickier to drink – blows its more established hues (red and green) out of the Gulf of Mexico. The vinegary blandness of the original Tabasco is elevated and clarified by the sweet smokiness of the bewitching habanero. There’s a muddy-looking Chipotle edition knocking around too, but it’s a flavour that’s been bashed around mercilessly by modern fast-food culture and – to my mind – lacks the elegant heft of this masterful take on habanero spice.
If you’re looking for some freshly jarred jalapeños to go alongside your new favourite hot sauce, look no further than our very own Sainsbury’s, whose freshly jarred jalapeños, sourced in Poland, throw shade on every branded competitor. Crisp, crunchy, and mouth-wateringly tart – even the brine they swim in should be cherished and stored: chuck it into your dressings, slaws and chillis or lob a bit in a bloody Mary.
Better yet, tuck a jar in the jersey pocket and guzzle those salty electrolytes when you most need them.
- Buy now from Ocado (£2.50) and Sainsbury’s (£1)
The post In the Drops: Restrap backpack, The General Classification clothing, Bissini socks, Styrkr gels and bars, and hot stuff appeared first on Cyclist.