Hi all,
Can anyone recommend a premium brand (or shop) with cycling kit of similar quality to Rapha or MAAP but without the price tag? Happy with neutral solid colour designs but like the premium cut and technical fabrics/features.
Ideally I'd like something circa $100 for knicks and $60 for jerseys.
Cheers
GDHF
Agree on the matching, that's why I prefer solid block colours that will go well with any brand/design. No way I'm paying $200+ for a jersey that will look dated next season as well as not match with any other gear!
I'd strongly recommend against going for DHB branded gear as it's not even close to premium quality. I have DHB bib shorts and DHB jersey. Both are very average compared to the Oakley, Bianchi and Pearl Izumi gear I have. My favourite bib shorts currently are my Oakley premiums. Standard price was over 200 but I managed to get some on sale for 120. There are some cheaper Oakley bib shorts too but not sure on the quality. DHB bib shorts have very thin lycra and really poor inbuilt padding.
I only ever spend a max of 70 on jerseys and can confirm that you can get great quality jerseys for that price (on sale)
Thanks for the tip on avoiding dhb.
Seems like I just need to keep an eye on the big sites and wait for a sale on the usual midrange suspects such as Santini, Assos and by the sounds of things Oakley. Kind of surprised there are no brands filling this gap as these garments would cost no more than a few dollars to make in Bangladesh etc!
Glad I could help. The DHB bib shorts only managed 5 months of rides (at 1 ride per week) before the padding was worn out and ineffective, along with the lycra becoming slightly see through in small patches. No thanks DHB.
Sorry, I know this is an old thread but I thought I'd put my 2 cents.
I have a different experience with DHB. Both my DHB bib shorts and DHB Merino wool jersey have been used a lot (especially the bib shorts) for a year and I can vouch for the quality.
For the price I think they are of good value. Get them when they are on 40%-50% discount and you won't go wrong. Premium brands easily cost at least 2.5 times. There are also many positive reviews for DHB products so I think they speak for themselves.
I agree with DHB quality but they are hardly on discount - atleast i haven't been able to get much discount.
Try Netti they r good n reasonably priced
Will have a look but my first impression is yeah, nah. Netti seems to be the brand your mother buys to ride on the bike path a few times a year.
Its pretty good quality now and i c cyclists wearing it all the time ! anyhow your choice given its ur money !
Decathlon has a lot of cycling gear on sale quite often. They don't have a lot of variety but will get you the basic kits to get started, padded shorts, jerseys and thermals. I got a few soccer thermals for the family for $8 each. Not cycling specific but does the job just fine. I can't say for sure the quality is premium, but I find the bib shorts I got fitted quite nicely and I can go for hours without any issues. The reviews on the website from others also seemed to resonate the same. Other brands, I find Pearl Izumi a nice fit for me and reasonably priced, the few items I got from DHB from Wiggle were actually quite nice too and really well priced (paid $25 for a thermal long sleeve jersey). Pushys sometimes have great clearance items too.
Not absolute premium like Rapha/MAAP/Assos etc but bang for buck pretty good. Miles better that cheapo ebay/decathlon dross. Try Neo Pro cycling https://www.neoprocycling.com/ an aussie company selling decent quality cycling clothes for reasonable prices. I have nothing to do with them, not a sock puppet just a satisfied customer. I bought some of their knicks and they are pretty good, I was leasantly surprised. i bought them because I wanted a colour other than black (Grey) to wear on my Wahoo Kickr during iso and didnt want to be out $300 for the premium stuff to sit on a turbo. I have some of the expensive Rapha and Assos knicks that are better quality but cost 3-4 times more. I have a few pairs of team kit knicks that cost $250 ish each that are lower quality that the Neopro ones. I have been pleasantly surprised and now thinking about their jerseys.
My experience with NeoPro was ordinary. I used the sizing chart but the bibs and jersey were way too small for me so had to pay for a return. The quality looked ordinary anyway. Beware the reviews on the website, you cant actually lodge a review although I'm told that some purchasers get an email asking for feedback which suggests the ones you see are curated. I also Googled some of the tags on their clothing and they look like generic Chinese/AliBaba fare, probably the ones that let you print your logo if you buy bulk https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product…
Hi Ozimodo! Thanks for the comment - just wanted to reply with a few things on here and clear up some things to people as what you have said is incorrect :)
We use an app called YOTPO for our reviews - feel free to research this and the authenticity of the app. They are verified reviews, meaning they can only be sent to people who have purchased the product. Part of how we keep our kits at such a crazy crazy cheap price is by keeping our overheads as low as possible, for example, our "subscription" with YOTPO only allows us to send out 100 review requests a month - this allows us to collect reviews to display on the website as well as providing us with feedback. We do not get to choose who these go out to - they are done at random. Further - please look at ALL of the happy customers on our Facebook page, instagram page etc that all comment about how great our stuff is for the price we sell it for. I note you are also in Brisbane - no doubt you will have seen the hundreds of people out and about in our kit - please ask them what they think of it as well - guarantee they are positive.
Our stuff is made in China, we don't hide this - we certainly aren't the only brand who has our stuff made there, however we ARE the only brand here that sells the quality we have for the price we sell it for :), in Australia anyway . Try searching on google ""XYZ brand"" made in China" and see what comes back with your chosen brand (we aren't interested in criticising other brands so won't name any). We do not use "generic" clothing - in fact we have designed and implemented our own stuff and have done right from Season 1 through to Season 12 we just released.
Finally - sorry that you were not happy with the returns process & policy. This is available for you to view prior to purchase, this is not a hidden page on the website. We sell our Jerseys @ $50 and Bibs at $85… we have made them as cheap as possible for everyone. I suppose this is a "problem" (if you can call it that) with our business model - most of our customers they don't need to return or swap items and only pay the original shipping fee, however for some that do they need to pay the extra to send it back - at our extremely low margins we can't absorb that like the bigger brands can - as they have higher margins. Many many other brands also charge return shipping, we are not alone!
Please let us know if you have any other questions though, always happy to help, Lizzi :)
Hi 2nd Effort! Thanks so much for recommending us :) Hope you've been smashing out K's in them still! Lizzi
Just look out for sales. Recently there was a Black Sheep sample sale and a lot of items were 50% off. The cheapest bibs were less than $100 and the Essential jerseys were around $80.
I didn't mind DHB and find their materials pretty good for the price you pay. The chamois on the bibs were thinner and less fitted than some of the premium brands, but I think I paid very little when they were on sale (I paid around $60 for a pair of Moda bibs during a sale last year).
The Rapha core bibs are only slightly over $100, and they're actually really good quality. Hubby has a pair and he swears by it. He also doesn't really wear jerseys, he wears the merino t-shirts (both long sleeve and short sleeve) from Rapha and Black Sheep and loves both. Again, they currently have a sale going and you might find some items for good prices if your size is available.
Santini's Australian website has samples every now and then, you can get some good priced gear if your size is available.
Have a look at Sigma Sport as their prices can be cheaper than buying local when they have big sales, same as Wiggle, the Black Sheep gear on there can be cheaper than buying local if you're lucky.
I also saw various reddit posts in the past that some of the Aliexpress gear are actually really good quality, there was a particular brand people mentioned (I think it's Racmmer) which was of decent quality, but I haven't tried personally so do your research before buying.
I don't own any MAAP items as I do find them quite over priced and the sale discounts aren't good enough either.
In general, I just shop around a lot and buy whatever that's on sale and in prints and colours that I like. I don't do matching kits, but instead just have one black bib and one navy bib so that they can match with most coloured and patterned jerseys.
Had great experience with Pedal Mafia too, very good quality and size is a bit more generous than the tight fit of MAAP.
Get them when they have discount
i just bought endura pro sl ii bib shorts from chainreactioncycles at $99 a pop, with $20 "new user" discount (i always seem to forget i signed up already with 50 other emails, must be alzheimer's or something). needed to spend $120 though, so i bought some hydration tabs, gels etc.
but they have gone up now (wait for the next 'clearance')
and before the current crisis, there is redwhite.cc bib shorts i wanted to try and you can get a 30% discount if you buy 4 pairs. but the exchange drop kills that deal (they charge in USD from singapore) so it would have been around 115AUD but it's well above that now (130AUD each now). i did buy some clearance jerseys for $49 from redwhite though that seem to be OK.
i've never tried rapha or MAAP because i don't want to waste big dollars on the brand name that i also have to match with everything else.
otherwise Assos on clearance, the entry level can be about 150 from pushys but i missed it waiting for another 15% off code and they sold out.