Rapha has gone again to the drafting board with its range-topping Pro Team bib shorts, with this third technology boasting a brand new chamois pad that’s proprietary to Rapha, new materials and fewer panels. It says they’re its most comfy excessive efficiency shorts ever.
Rapha says that it’s let its EF Education execs free sitting on the pad, which it says has already been street examined over a complete of 400,000km. The new seat pad will increase the quantity of excessive density foam padding, with a reticulated net-like construction that Rapha says helps to mould to your derriere and wicks sweat away rapidly.
The seat pad is sewn into a brand new material construction which reduces the variety of panels and seams. There’s a brand new material used for the physique of the shorts, which is made in Italy and which Rapha says has a excessive power to weight ratio, offers compression and helps to extend seat pad stability. It’s additionally claimed to help with thermo-regulation.
The new shorts function fewer seams and a brand new seat pad (Image credit score: Dan King for Rapha)
The leg hems are laser minimize, there are lay-flat bib straps and a mesh waist part, which Rapha says present optimum match, performance and help.
We awarded the second technology Rapha Pro Team bib shorts 4.5 stars after we reviewed them in 2021 after 18 months of use, with Tech Editor Josh Croxton summing up his assessment by saying: “Truly comfy in all circumstances, indoors and out, and nonetheless going sturdy after 18 months of frequent use.”
Road examined by Lachlan Morton
Lachlan Morton wore the brand new shorts to smash a 40 12 months document in New Zealand in January (Image credit score: Dan King for Rapha)
Rapha doesn’t declare that Lachlan Morton wore the shorts in his record-breaking 14,000-plus kilometre, 30 day trip across the periphery of Australia in September 2024. But it says that he did so on one other epic, setting the quickest recognized time for the 648km between Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand in January this 12 months with a trip of 18 hours and 28 minutes, beating a document that had stood for 40 years.
According to Morton: “From Auckland to Wellington, I didn’t discover them in any respect, and that is the very best reward I can provide. That’s what I need from my bib shorts.”
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Morton has instructed Cyclingnews that he plans to sit back on large challenges for some time, which appears honest. He has a string of gravel races lined up although, main as much as the defence of his Unbound title on the finish of May.
Pricing, sizing, colors and availability
Two leg lengths permit cyclists of various heights to get a very good match (Image credit score: Dan King for Rapha)
The new Rapha Pro Team III bib shorts can be found for women and men, priced at £240. Although costly, that’s the identical value because the earlier model and undercuts the £300 Rapha Pro Team Powerweave shorts although, which we rated among the many finest bib shorts we’ve examined
Men’s sizes vary from XS to XXL, whereas ladies’s Pro Team III shorts are bought in XXS to XL sizes. There’s a selection of two leg lengths and 4 colors for the lads’s shorts: Black/Black, Black/White, Green/White, and Dark Navy/White. Women’s shorts are available in Black/White, Green/White, and Dark Navy/White.
