Eurobike 2012: Endura’s MTR Range

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Eurobike: Endura’s MTR – a technical range of clothing for ‘serious’ mountain bikers. Serious enough? Read on…

We got glimpses of Endura’s new MTR range back at CoreBike in January, and after two years of development, it’s finally ready to come out. Endura had Oli Beckingsale on hand at Eurobike to talk people through how it came about.

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Oli explains that Endura wanted a range of clothing for serious mountain bikers, with exactly the features that they’d want and nothing else. They asked Oli to bring up a bag of his favourite kit and talked through just what made every bit important and good for him. The range literally started as six blank pages and will consist of a long and short sleeve jersey, a bib short and a baggy short, a jacket and gloves.
Starting with the shorts, the bibshort is of similar quality to Endura’s Equipe range of premium road gear, but it also features a water resistant back for wet days and an intriguing grey patch of fabric on the lower back. This works with a similar patch on the baggy short to keep the baggy in place. It’s not Velcro, it works more like a velvet, so the two patches lock together and will resist the baggies sliding down. The cut on the baggies is pretty slim – kind of a TransAlp euro-baggy look. They’re simple in design with no vents, two slash pockets and one small zipped rear pocket for a car key and a tenner.

The emergency shell is as waterproof as Endura’s Helium jacket and features very little in the way of extras. There’s a full zip and a high neck for comfort in bad weather. It packs down to the length of a mini-pump and will fit into a rear pocket.

The MTR Emergency Shell, in black too.

 

MTR Windproof Jersey (there's a non-windproof race jersey too)

 

 

The Endura MTR windproof jersey comes in long and short sleeves. Both have a windproof front, reinforced shoulders for wearing with a pack and the long sleeve has windproof sleeves too. There are three rear road-style pockets and a small waterproof zipped phone pocket.

 

Finally the MTR glove is a simple (there’s a theme here…) glove with no Velcro tabs or extra bits. Just a thin, pre-curved palm and Cordura patches in places where you’re going to get scuffed. This should all be out in the shops soon and we’re keenly looking forward to trying it. Meanwhile, Oli’s off to the World Champs at the weekend.

 

 

Oli shows the two panels of velvety-grip stuff.

 

Bibs on the left are £89.99. Baggies will be £59.99

 

As for colours, the Emergency shell comes in orange or black. Everything else comes in… black.

 

Rear stretch panel to help the baggies fit well when on the bike
The man himself - Oli Beckingsale

Prices: Emergency Shell £89.99, Windproof jersey is £69.99 long sleeve and £54.99 short sleeve. The bibshort will be £89.99 with softshell panels and £79.99 for regular bibs, the baggies are £59.99 and the gloves are £32.99. Currently it’s a men-only range.

 

And finally, not part of the MTR range, but Endura has come out with a women’s bibshort trying to solve the eternal issue of going for a wee without having to completely undress. The Endura short has a small zipper that works in a semicircle (a moon?) around the back panel of the shorts and allows bottom access.

 

Looks pretty much like a regular short.
And with the hidden zip unzipped...

 

 

 

Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 22 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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