I wore rain pants the other day. This is not the opening line of a joke, similar to “I shot a moose” but instead it feels like a guilty admission as I’d never have imagined wearing these after years of riding with lycra-based clothing. In my mind leg warmers or bibtights are used in winter and nothing else exists.
However if these hadn’t been on my radar before they’ve been useful and allowed me to ride when I might otherwise have stayed indoors.
Having agonised over the difficulty of giving the totally impartial review, I find the more I think about things the only possibility is to emphasise the personal experience. So with this in mind here is my take on the Hincapie George Signature jacket.
As reminder, I’ve been on a quest for a jacket that fits tight, that does not balloon up when riding. After all, rain is not a freak event and putting a shell jacket on shouldn’t mean you look like the Michelin Man just because it’s wet outside or you’re descending a long mountain pass.
“The Competition Bicycle, a photographic history” is the full title of Jan Heine’s book and this is what the book is all about. It features 34 bikes from the earliest race bikes to modern era machines and there are extensive studio photographs of each machine.
The bike is the star in this book. You might have seen black and white images of Fausto Coppi on his Bianchi or faded colour images of Eddy Merckx on his orange bike in the 1970s but now you can see these bikes in full colour. Each bike gets several pages of photographs with some text to explain history and context of the bike. For example Merckx’s orange frame is labelled “Eddy Merckx” but is actually a De Rosa. The author has taken care to find the authentic machine.
Regular readers will know I don’t usually feature product reviews on here. I did a book review last week but that’s about it and I’m not sure I’ll be doing many more. It’s much harder than I thought.
I could just say this is a great book that is well-researched and complete with stunning photographs. But there’s plenty more to add.
How objective are bike reviews? Someone writing a review would say they know their stuff, that they can tell the difference between a good frame and a bad one, more they can get the measure of wheels, handlebars and tyres too. Only there’s plenty of evidence from outside the cycling world that reviewing, testing and … Read more