Cyclist
In The Drops: Velobici kit, ‘best-in-class wheels’, lovely shoes, stupid money bottle cage and the day cycling got cool
What a time to be alive. As we speak the UK is transitioning back to something like a respectable country, ‘The clown show is over’ wrote Der Spiegel. England has done it! And not only that, it has continued its record of never missing a penalty under a Labour government in 2024. And then the Tour, and what a Tour de France.
Jonas Vingegaard has defied all odds and is giving Tadej Pogačar a run for his money, and this is Pog, a rider who apparently dropped 2.5kg and gained 10 watts since his Giro domination. The French have finally done some winning, which is also nice. And then, Cav. Or ‘the sprinting Methuselah’, as Ewan Wilson has called him. (Currently the best nickname I’ve heard in 2024, chapeau Ewan.)
All we need now is for Pog’s tufty hair to lose him the last day time-trial like Fignon’s ponytail in 1989*, and this actually will be the Tour for the ages everyone hoped for, but which looked so unlikely in June.
Completely unconnected to any of this are my favourite pieces on cyclist.co.uk: Ewan’s guide to pro cycling’s transfer market, and because I love wacky bikes, Look’s classic bikes gallery. These bikes are hold-my-pint and pick-up-my-jaw immense.
How we all lament the UCI’s Lugano Charter that killed such innovation in 1996. Boo! But I digress. On with the show…
[*Apparently years later Fignon would occasionally stop, count out to eight and sigh to himself… listen to that and more stories in our interview with Greg LeMond in Cyclist Magazine Podcast episode 84.]
Velobici Hammer jersey and bib shorts
Billed as Velobici’s ‘lightest bib shorts yet’, the Hammer bib shorts are a joy to be worn. Material is thin but compressive and has performed wonderfully across a range of temperatures, from low teens to (whisper it) the other day when it went over 25°C.
Meanwhile, down in the engine room, Velobici calls it its ‘legendary seven-hour chamois pad’, but I just call it comfy and notably silky against my skin; then up top the strap arrangement – wide, flat, with a back panel to keep straps in position – sits smooth and flush against the body.
The matching Hammer jersey is all embroidered logos and neat details, and like the shorts is on the lighter side. Even so, like a lot of Velobici kit the Hammer jersey leans towards opulence as opposed to skin-tight racy, but nonetheless this is the raciest jersey yet I’ve yet tried from the British brand. It’s light, form-fitting and quick drying.
It also has Velobici’s signature revisionist pocket theory, which sees the Hammer jersey get four rear pockets, two small of back, two sort of side/kidney, then a fifth zip pocket atop the rear left-side pocket.
To be honest I’ve never had a problem with the standard three pockets, but hey, Velobici wants to be different and that’s OK.
Styling is stand-out despite a muted colour palette (the Hammer also comes in the green/brown above), and it’s this that endears me to Velobici more than anything.
Yes, my partner jibed that the kit is designed by Victoria Beckham, but in a sea of kit makers, Velobici’s gear looks different. Sort of cycling Mods go to Italy. I like it. Plus it’s really comfortable to ride in.
Hunt Sub50 Limitless wheels
Dubbed ‘best-in-class’ by Hunt (it has a 34-page white paper to prove it, available online should you so wish), Hunt’s Sub50 wheels take the Limitless platform – where rims get wide and aero but stay light thanks to co-moulded polymer inserts in the carbon – and runs with it.
Compared its predecessor, the Hunt 48 Limitless, rim shapes are now different external widths. The front is 34.2mm wide while the rear slims to 30mm. Rim depth and internal width are the same front to back, the Sub50 rim being 49.5mm deep and 23mm wide internally.
Trust Hunt, this configuration is more aero than before – the Sub50s are 1.4W more efficient than the 48 Limitless, and that’s with 30mm tyres (the 48 benchmark is with 28mm tyres).
On that note, the Sub50 is designed around 28mm-30mm tyres, compared to the 48s, which are optimised for 25mm-28mm. That tells you everything you need to know about where things have been heading in the last few years’ quest for rolling speed.
The wheels shed around 130g, with a pair of Sub50s plus rim tape weighing just 1,383g on my scales. That’s also around 100-130g lighter than even the lightest comparable 50mm-deep wheelsets out there.
The low weight is achieved by unidirectional (UD) carbon spokes (the Sub50 also comes with steel Pillar Wing spokes, £1,479/1,428g claimed) and all-new H_Ratchet Dbl hubs, which weigh a claimed 332g a pair. Crucially, the new hubs feature simplified and more robust ratchet freehub internals, instead of a traditional pawl mechanism.
Unlike many carbon-spoked wheels, Sub50 wheels can be trued or spokes replaced in the normal fashion, since the carbon spokes aren’t co-moulded to rims or hubs. Rather, they insert in the hub in a straight-pull fashion and secure with threaded nipples, which are exposed at the rim edge.
Along with the weight, Hunt says carbon spokes make the Sub50 6% more responsive (ie, stiffer) than steel-spoke equivalents. Are they any good? Buy Cyclist issue 155 to find out, cos you guessed it, I reviewed them.
- Buy now from Hunt (£1,479 steel spokes, £1,879 UD carbon spokes, £2,289 UC carbon spokes and CeramicSpeed bearings)
Silca Sicuro bottle cage
I’ll keep this one short, because we can all make our minds up about a £75 bottle cage, and we all know what one does. But the Silca Sicuro is just the most gorgeous bottle cage I have ever seen.
It’s welded from a single tube of 3-2.5 titanium… by lasers. Yep, those guys. Future shit. Check out if you can the tiny smooth seam to the right hand side of the bottle boss in the picture below. Nifty.
The Sicuro’s overall design is borrowed from everyone’s first bike, but hey, there’s a reason for that: it just works to hold your bottle. You can even bend it in/out to change how tightly it clamps that bidon.
But none of this matters, because the true meaning of bottle cages – like all expensive bike parts – is to look good, and I love these cages so much because they are metal but still look really cool on carbon bikes, which usually look cheap with metal cages.
A single Sicuro bottle cage weighs just 32g, or 3.2 blue tits, given that a single blue tit weighs 10g. Which is insane.
Maybe I need to review a blue tit, talk to its manufacturer to see how they achieve the weight and see how much of it has been made by lasers. Imagine how light one will be when tits go beakless next year (industry rumour, you heard it here first).
- Buy now from Saddleback (£75)
Specialized S-Works Torch shoes
‘Super comfortable and stylish!’ wrote Scott F. ‘How can a pair of shoes make such a difference?’ wrote Jovica. ‘Would buy again,’ wrote Ricardo S. Alright Ricardo S., are you made of money? These are £350, mate! But I do agree with these customer reviews, Specialized’s flag-shoe is magnificent.
This size 45 pair of S-Works Torch shoes weighs 524g, and they feel every bit as feathery on. The soles are carbon-mega-stiff; the perforated uppers breathable but not draughty; and the twin Boa dial closure is about as easy to use and functional as things come. But my favourite thing, as with many Specialized shoes before these, is the Torch’s fit.
Specialized offers the Torch in sizes EU36-49, with half sizes from EU38-46, but the stand-out-from-the-crowd factor is they come in ‘regular’ and ‘wide’ fits.
Primarily this means the toe-box is much wider on the wides, which is perfect for my gouty feet.
Because I am 39 years old, I am quite fit, I have a decent, mostly veggie diet, and yet I get gout and it’s not fair. It’s made my feet splay, they are now wider. It sucks.
So shout out to all the gout sufferers out there. Don’t be ashamed! We are not Henry VIII, we are but humans and we are afflicted with a hereditary problem (which is what gout is, btw – end the lavish lifestyle stigma!).
And shout out to Specialized, indirectly helping gout sufferers since the inception of its Retul and BodyGeometry fit programmes (upon whose real-world rider data these shoes are designed around).
- Buy now from Specialized (£350)
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Cycling sunglasses at Glastonbury Festival
I called it.
Yes, I know there is a Guardian article on this subject already, but I only found this out later. So since I was first to discern this trend, I am using that article’s image here (thanks guys, and love your work!).
But honestly, from the first pair of Oakley Sutros to the many and varied 100%, SunGod, Scicon and all manner of definite fakes and knock-off cycling sunnies, Glastonbury’s crowd (mostly lads to be fair) was awash with big-lens fun-shades borrowed straight from our lovely sport.
Whether the wearers were avid cyclists (ravers, dopers, we all love drugs) or they just happened to get some last minute internet deals when searching ‘comedy glasses’, I don’t know. But what I do know is this surely means cycling sunnies are at last cool off the bike, and that the next time you see MF Doom he’ll have ditched the mask in favour of some Oakley Katos.
Also kudos to that hand in the back smoking a real cigarette. If you’re going to smoke, do it properly.
Fun fact: French goalkeeper Fabian Barthez and defender Laurent Blanc used to smoke fags at halftime when they both played for Manchester United. And no-one said anything on the grounds it was deemed a French thing to do.
Related posts
Pro cycling transfer rumours 2024/2025
Cyclist Magazine Podcast: Greg LeMond
The sprinting Methusaleh: Mark Cavendish’s rollercoaster ride to #35
Men’s Tour de France 2024: Route, how to watch and all you need to
The post In The Drops: Velobici kit, ‘best-in-class wheels’, lovely shoes, stupid money bottle cage and the day cycling got cool appeared first on Cyclist.