I’m sat in a cafe, doing a little work and a chap has just come in from his morning ride. The chap has a lovely Giant (brand, not size) road bike (which he’s parked outside with no lock) BUT…he’s also wearing GIANT shorts, GIANT top and socks…that match his bike. How do I know all this, well, the word GIANT is written no less than 15 times on the clothing and a further 5 times on the bike. Judging by the gentleman’s physique, I’m guessing that he’s NOT a sponsored rider, so why wear something which says GIANT on EVERY surface? Why would you want to be a billboard? I is confused.

I go out of my way to chose clothing with as little visible branding as is possible, so perhaps that’s why this drew my eye…I’m also a little bored, so…

I don’t understand why people effectively offer free advertising. My favourite jersey has no logos and is just plain white with a subtle splash of colour with thin rainbow stripes on the chest

I don’t understand why people get so concerned about what other people wear when on their bikes… live and let live and leave them to it, if it makes them happy.

#humbleworldchampbrag

GIANT RAPHA SPECIALIZED

brands are everywhere, take a look at winter climbing gear we were proper labels everywhere, nobody actually cares

where I used to ride there was a bloke in full Cervelo Test team kit, from helmet to socks and shoes, and the bike…He was, let’s say built for comfort not speed, but **** it, if he was having his road race fantasy work out on a Sunday morning, then good luck to him. I road down one hill yesterday and was instantly covered in wet sheep shit from head to toe, so who am I to criticise 😆

I agree – road riders seem to love teh corporate branding and advertising.

Get on with your work, slacker.

Is it a case of copying the pros? The road racers are all skinny billboards and so it is seen as ‘normal’ to ride around covered in corporate logos whereas mountain biking doesn’t have the same level of sponsorship and so not as many logos on pros or weekend warriors!

Hmm.

Is it any different to wearing a t-shirt with Adidas or Nike on? Darn it, I’m wearing a top with Animal written on it at the moment. Just realised.

I don’t have a bike jersey that relates to the brand of bike I ride but I can understand why people do it. On-One used to sell a load of MTB kit, so if you were really into the brand/bike you could get something that showed to the world your love.

Some people like to do this. Others don’t. It doesn’t matter.

Freebies included with bike sale? He works for Giant, a friend/family member works for Giant?

Did you ask him?

I dont like logos on my clothing.
The biggest annoyance is mens names on my underpants. At a push I can accept pictures of superheros or possibly the word Next but an other mans name no way!

Bike wear is appaling, covered in logos and often primary colours or worse still dayglo.
Its not suprising peope in normal clothing try to kill us.

Thankfully I notice Gore and Endura have brought out some plain colours this year.

Please choose carefully folks. When youre on a bike, civilians will associate you me. Its your duty to look good.

I know a chap who replaced all his kit when he changed his bike brand so it all matched. It makes him happy. Who am I to judge? Although it did make me chuckle when he asked why I had gone for such a stealthy no logo option when I had spent so much on my bike. He actually said “No one will know what you’ve shelled out”.

don’t kid yourself that you aren’t also making a statement with your ‘stealthy no logo option’.

you probably paid far more and the people you want to know will know…

I agree – road riders seem to love teh corporate branding and advertising.

That will be the newbies, big saddle bag, bike from Evans/cyclescheme, reflectors still on wheels, full trade team or manufacturer kit and an upright nodder position as that’s what they like on their mountain bike.

Seasoned road cyclists usually wear club kit or discretely branded Rapha/castelli/assos (well the ones I know do)

I reckon the MTB world is as bad going by what you see round here. What you don’t see, which is nice on the road , is club kit.

I find it bizarre as well. I have no clothing with visible logos bar a shirt with that alligator thing on it ( can’t remember whos logo it is but I know its someones) that I got from TKMaxx

Why anyone would wear sponsors logos when they are not sponsered is beyond me. But its not the first time I have been bemused by folks actions 🙂

The biggest annoyance is mens names on my underpants

Well, stop stealing clothing from your municipal sports centre 😉

It’s no more a statement than the guys I see riding my local trails with their enduro-rigs, matching brand pyjama attired with knee and elbow pads on trails that can be safely negotiated with a CX bike.

It’s their money, it makes them happy and no baby robins were killed in the process.

just plain white with a subtle splash of colour with thin rainbow stripes on the chest

stealth troll 😕

i prefer wearing national champions jerseys. with white shorts.

big bright logos on road kit is all part of the fun. on mountain bike kit not so much.

At least they’re wearing all this branded kit to actually undertake a sporting activity. Unlike the people you see walking around/going to the pub wearing replica football shirts.

I see plenty of them where I live/ride (Bromley/north Kent) – all I can say is Rapha must have sold a lot of XXXL replica Sky jerseys.

I don’t really like branded kit – I guess if I only had ‘Giant’ bikes I’d be more tempted to buy some Giant kit, but mixing up bikes/branded kit looks daft.

Ohhhhh the shame 😳

Yesterday I commuted in wearing full Lotto-Sudal team kit, except the socks, Planet-X flanders, and the bike is a Cannondale not a Ridley. And the kit was fake from China.

Today I rode in some B’Twin shorts and a Marmite jersey with “Good in Bread” on the back.

And my new helmet is dayglow yellow (mostly because I don’t want to die).

Why do I wear this stuff? Because I think it looks cool* and I don’t want to look like a “Seasoned road cyclist …….wear[ing] club kit or discretely branded Rapha/castelli/assos” in a dick swinging ‘my kit cost more than your bike’ contest.

*and I get live out my spring classics breakaway fantasy every morning where Nine Mile Ride becomes a cobbled classic and the climb utto the A329 is the Koppenberg.

I was at in a restaurant yesterday behind a bloke who was enormous… he was wearing a brand that said ‘elephant polo… took all of my restraint to resist asking him where his rider was?

It wasn’t the fact that it was branded per say, like you say, no difference to an Adidas shirt or a Rapha jersey, but more that that it was overbranded. GIANT on the front AND back of the arms, GIANT on the chest, GIANT down the sides, GIANT twice on the back. 5 GIANTS on the shorts, 4 on the socks…5 (at least on the bike). I guess it was more the quantity and the matchigness that made it stand out.

Like the chap above, I prefer a subtle approach with splash of colour.

I usually wear my dayglo yellow club kit. I’m seasoned, apparently 😆

Agree MTB is as bad but that tends to be full stormtrooper outfit for a lap of the woods.

I propose we set up some kind of enforcement agency for these transgressions, just a small fine to begin with.

Pick a look thats likely to suit you…

I’m sure the road cycling forums would be laughing at MTB’s love of pyjamas for cycling in the woods 🙂

My son’s got it right: He has a single cycling outfit (Lycra shorts, club jersey) that he wears for everything: racing, mountain biking, road rides, family rides – the lot. When he can’t wear it, he never seems to have the same spark as he does otherwise, so he has plenty of duplicate kit to ensure that the backup outfit rarely sees the light of day. The only variations are wet days (coat + waterproof socks) or colder days (when various layers go under the jersey) but 9 times out of 10, he looks exactly the same.

Now I just need to get his physique and I can follow his example…

Seasoned road cyclists usually wear club kit

Mine has Giant on it – we’re sponsored by them. I ride a Giant too. 😆

Mind you, we’re also sponsored by Evans.

BTW Giant bikes like to advertise on their frames – I think there are six on my Defy. Not so many on the Propels.

That will be the newbies, big saddle bag, bike from Evans/cyclescheme, reflectors still on wheels, full trade team or manufacturer kit and an upright nodder position as that’s what they like on their mountain bike.

Seasoned road cyclists usually wear club kit or discretely branded Rapha/castelli/assos (well the ones I know do)
…and this post perfectly sums up the exclusive attitude that seems so prevalent in road cycling.

Does it matter? Does any of it matter? It’s all riding bikes, we should be applauding all of it. So what if it’s a fat guy in team kit on a bike that cost more than a house, or a skinny 17 year old in some grubby old shorts down the woods.

One thing I’ve really noticed since starting to ride on the roads is the snobbery – maybe it’s the MTBers that I usually hang out with are particularly casual, but up until I got a road bike, all I knew of riding was ‘wear whatever, ride whatever, have fun’. Then I got a road bike, and suddenly I’m aware of the supposed crime of wearing baggies on a road bike (I understand why people where lycra, I do sometimes, but so what if people want to wear baggies, I do that too), the heinousness of discs, the ultimate offence of having a peak on your helmet, etc etc.

This never usually happened ‘down the woods’, and if comments were ever made, someone almost always took the commenter to task on it.

It’s all bikes, it’s all good. Ride what you like, wearing what you like, doing what you love.

That will be the newbies, big saddle bag, bike from Evans/cyclescheme, reflectors still on wheels, full trade team or manufacturer kit and an upright nodder position as that’s what they like on their mountain bike.

This statement is proof that it’s the attitude not the clothing that defines the bellend 🙁

Only person that gets away with commenting on my choice of cycle clothing is the missus when I get told to cover up as bib shorts are an obsenity.

…and this post perfectly sums up the exclusive attitude that seems so prevalent in road cycling.

merely stating fact, you can usually tell who has been riding for a while by the absence of superfluous kit and even how they wheel a bike. i watched a group of new cyclists leave a cafe on a led ride and it was all rugby shorts over lycra, bum bags, helmets on backwards and spatial dyspraxia as they clattered the bikes into each other/tables/other people bikes as they left.

you have to start somewhere, we were all one of them once..

merely stating fact, you can usually tell who has been riding for a while by the absence of superfluous kit and even how they wheel a bike. i watched a group of new cyclists leave a cafe on a led ride and it was all rugby shorts over lycra, bum bags, helmets on backwards and spatial dyspraxia as they clattered the bikes into each other/tables/other people bikes as they left.

you have to start somewhere, we were all one of them once..[/Quote]
I’ve been riding over 20 years, I quite often wear cheap combat shorts over lycra if I haven’t got any clean trail shorts, and only the other day I bounced the forks on my 3 day old bike off my dining room ceiling.

Maybe it’s time to stop being a condescending ass, huh? You’re perpetuating exactly the sort of attitude that discourages people like me from getting out on the road.

I shamelessly wore a Liquigas team top with a Liquigas team colours Cannondale.

I loved the bright colours, and the particular combination of colours, so why the hell not? The fact that I was advertising Italy’s premier bottled gas distributor was neither here nor there.

Seasoned road cyclists usually wear club kit

From what i’ve seen, this does seem to be the case.

What I don’t understand is, why 90% of clubs literally pick the sh*ttest design possible, to use for their kit?

It’s like some weird, inverse mentality as to who’s kit makes you want to be sick first.

I guess it’s some tie in with the local primary schools 🙂

Maybe it’s time to stop being a condescending ass, huh? You’re perpetuating exactly the sort of attitude that discourages people like me from getting out on the road.

R U OK Poppet? dont let the nasty men get you down. 😐

Ah man, I was out on the road wearing a t-shirt promoting a small town 90’s indie band the other day, I must have looked such a fool. But I also had Lycra shorts. And Troy Lee socks. It must be so conflicting how to judge me!
Ah, it’s OK, I had a peak on my helmet and a pack on my back, and the bike was an ‘endurance’ geo. Case closed.

Seasoned road cyclists usually wear club kit or discretely branded Rapha/castelli/assos

Naaah… Torm is the new discrete kit.

R U OK Poppet? dont let the nasty men get you down.

Ah, good, the ‘poppet’ response. We’ve established the role in this game. You might want to also wheel out ‘hand wringer’, ‘apologist’, ‘snowflake’, and a few more (possibly ‘libtard’, depending on where you sit on that part of the internet commenter spectrum), just to get the full gamut 🙂

It’s a bit like a new Godwin’s law.

No different to MTB riders being plastered with Troy Lee, Fox, ONeal etc.

Motor cyclists wearing team/manufacturers leathers

The man in the Ford Focus with a Ford Fleece

Football fans

Rugby fans

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just to get the full gamut

you forgot ‘treacle’