RAPHA MEN'S JERSEYS - SHORT SLEEVE
Forcats de la route. Prisoners of the road. Convicts of cycling. Moving forward, yet stuck behind bars, regardless of the conditions. We joke. The metaphor, coined for cyclists racing the Tour de France in the early days of the race, is apt. Stroking along after a feed on a warm summer day with only a hit of breeze is what we might imagine racing to be about, but those days are mixed with searing heat, biting cold, wind that tears at the skin, treacherous blind turns raced at the edge of control in a driving downpour. Cycling is that, too, for the dedicated, those who are so addicted they've convicted themselves. The Rapha Pro Team Jersey works the prisoners theme into the clothing, both in word and symbol.
Rapha went to their pro team, the Rapha Condor Sharp squad out of England, and asked them to help design a race-specific jersey from the ground up. Just because they're convicts of the road, doesn't mean they have to wear an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit when grinding away with the chain gang.
Any good jersey needs a solid foundation, an anchor that will hold the top in place. Rapha created a special gripper, elastic on the outside, gel on the inside, branded pro team, across the back. This will hold the jersey in place whether it's loaded or unloaded. Because pro teams engage in communal washing of identical garments, there's also a name tag sewn on …it's the details like Coldblack, mesh galore, and bonded seams that let you go 110%... the inside of the jersey. You see the stitching for it on the lower left front. The horizontal stitches are a reminder of the forcats theme. Likewise the black and white bars on the draft flap that are revealed when the collar is un-zipped, and the stitching across the right pocket.
Rapha decided to abandon wool for this jersey. Not quite light enough, not quite sleek enough for 110%, for the moments when you're up to your eyeballs in lactic acid, hoping against hope that you'll either flat or the guy next to you will fall over from fatigue, so hard is the effort. Moments like these you don't want to have any distraction, lest it take away from the total focus necessary to keep going. They have, instead, paired with Eschler of Switzerland for the fabrics of this jersey. The main material is a wicking spandex infused with ColdBlack, a fabric treatment that helps improve the sun reflection and UV protection of the jersey. In tests, the treatment has kept a human torso five degrees centigrade cooler than the same jersey without the treatment.
Despite all the ColdBlack goodness, Rapha decided that wasn't enough. They also wove in mesh side panels for better cooling and a horizontal mesh panel underneath the pockets so the pockets don't act as a warming layer.
And to keep distractions to a minimum, the raglan sleeves are attached to the jersey body by bonding rather than stitching -- smoother, lighter, almost unnoticeable.
The jersey comes with the traditional three rear pockets. The middle pocket has a loop in the middle for a mini-pump. The right pocket has a slot on the inside to run headset cables, and the cables can be run up the right side of the garment through purpose-built loops. The main zipper has a locking lever.
The Rapha Pro Team Jersey comes in Black/white/cream and Cream/white/black. Sizes run from Small to XX-Large.
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