Things I bought that don't work

Wily-Quixote

1. Lake BOA shoes.
Nice idea... fiddly wheel that tightens your shoes all over. Beautiful leather, stiff carbon. Wheel can't be tightened enough. Well it can, with pliers. Now i need pliers in my back pocket when I ride. $250 shoes that need pliers to tighten them. Doesn't someone wear them before they manufacture them, like to see if the fiddly wheel that replaces a non-fiddly strap actually works?

2. Gore Windstopper.
Apprently it's windproof, and breathes. Except it doesn't... breathe that is. It really, really doesn't breathe. Now I have a jacket that is too hot and sweaty to wear. Except when it's cold which is when I like to wear it. Then it's too cold and sweaty. I see the pro's don't wear windstopper, they wear roubaix. Smart pro's.
Actually I lied, windstopper is great for gloves and booties. That's all. crap for anything else. Except my gore bike gear phantom vest. It used to be a jacket with removable sleeves. Except it's designed for someone with pipestem arms who doesn't sweat. It's really, really cold tight and sweaty as a jacket. It's warmer with sleeves off. Amazing, how is that possible?

3. Anything by sealskin.
I have sealskin waterproof cycling gloves. They are amazing because I think that sealskin is made by people from Opposite World and it comes to our world via a wormhole. Sealskin waterproof gloves have amazing properties. When it rains they absorb water and your hands get wet in 5.78 seconds. they then take 4 years to dry out.
When they are dry again it is possible to wear them as a windproof layer on a cold morning. Amazingly they suck moisture in from Opposite World and your hands get wet in 5.78 seconds. Then they take 4 years to dry out again.
Next time I go to a desert I am taking them.

4. Helmets
Good idea. Protect your brain from injury when you fall off the bike. Then a designer got to them. Now every helmet I buy has an aero projection on the back for the 'exhaust ports' that magically suck hot air from my head and transport it somewhere else. Except it doesn't and my helmet is no cooler or safer than a $50 helmet was 10 years ago. In fact less safe because of all the weird projections out the back. The magic pads inside wick all my sweat into hyperspace leaving my head dry and cool on a 573 degree australian summer day. Except they don't. Its funny that .000087 mm of foam doesn't actually wick anything and the styrofoam it adheres to doesn't wick either. Did I say adhere? I meant adhere in the shop but then on the first hot day the 'adhesive' smears away leaving limp, wet 'wicking' pads stuck to my scalp instead of the helmet. So now my helmet has no 'wicking pads' but a styrofoam shell in contact with my scalp. At least my helmet is now .0000005g lighter.

5. Bib shorts.
fantastic idea. Shorts that make you look like a Euro Pro. Except they don't. because euro pros ride 8 hours a day and have .0001% body fat. I ride an hour a day and have 100% body fat. Luckily they're really uncomfortable otherwise I'd have urine rashes on my thighs.
What I mean by that is because they are like wearing a plastic bag stuck to your back and abdomen they are too uncomfortable to wear on any day with a temperature over -47 degrees celcius. Which is lucky because in any temperature over 0 celcius I like to drink water. In Australia it gets to 50 million degrees which means if you want to live when riding you have to dringk some water. When you drink you need to wee. Unfortunately it takes so long to get your dick out in bibshorts it is easier and safer to just wet yourself.
If you do manage to get your dick out it usually means taking off your jersey and/or squatting with one strap over your arm. This is so noticable by the police that you will invariably get arrested. And sit in a cell. In bib shorts. Lucky they have padding.

rgliniany

Ride hard

And breathe...

ct8282

Whilst the humorous intent of your post did make me chuckle for a grand total of 5.78 seconds, I then got bored since almost all of what you said is complete bollox, in my opinion and based on my own personal experience.

The liner in my helmet stays put, has never budged, and seems to do a good job of wicking sweat, even though I didn't realise it was there for that purpose! I just thought it was supposed to make it more comfortable on my head, which it does. The cool protrusions at the back of mine make me look really cool and make me at least .000087mph faster than without! Win.

My bib shorts are immensely comfortable and do no stick to my back, or front for that matter. If I need to get my 'dick' out I can just pull the front down easily and enjoy a nice comfy wee. The material is super stretchy and weeing is really no drama at all. Perhaps my bibs are too big for me, I'm too short, or you're inhumanly tall or bought the wrong size bibs!

My sealskin socks and gloves keep my hands and feet spot on dry and nice and toastie on very cold days. I feel like I am actually wearing the skin from virginal seal pups, but being an animal lover am really pleased I am not. I love seal pups.

My Gore wind stopper stops the wind so well, in fact when I walk out the door wearing mine the wind in my local area just, well, stops. The local people come to me on windy days asking me to put on my 'magic' top. The other day I saw a boy on the field flying a kite with his dad. Just for laughs I put on my magic top and watched as the boys kite slowly dropped from the sky. It was cruel but made me chuckle for .0000005 seconds.

Lake BOA shoes. Wtf are they?

antfly

I would like to add, rather reluctantly, sportwool jerseys which invariably
get holes in and around the pockets. I have 3 like that, man made fibres only from now on.

styxd

Take up golf.

sloppyschleckonds

He did, his missus refused to wash his balls.

wishitwasallflat

Well I loved it - very funny OP

ugo.santalucia

In reminding everyone about rule 9

9 ) Members are not permitted to harass or "flame" other members. Please note that this also includes the posting of taunts on a forum solely for the purpose of deriding that forum's topic and/or members.

I don't think there is anything wrong in a topic which discredits some common beliefs in the "buying advice section". I actually agree that Gore is kind of waterproof but does not breathe like it says, I agree helmets ventilation is not better in my 200 pounds Aeon than it was in my 30 pounds helmet from 1999 and sealskinz gloves, while waterproof, do suck water from the liner at the edge and get wet within minutes and do take days to dry out

Anonymous

All 5 things work very well if you get the right ones and wear/use them properly.
I'll give you the Sealskinz gloves though, but IMO no glove is waterproof and breathable so its a futile quest. Sealskinz socks are fab.

Grill

OnYourRight wrote:

Pretty much any high-tech material with a trademarked name is inferior in important ways to the traditional materials that preceded it.

I have no idea why cyclists spend so much money on tat. Perhaps it’s a straightforward equation: new/easy money + bad taste = pointless acquisitiveness run amok?

(I am spared the worst of these excesses by not having much money. I recommend it.)

The obsession with comfort, endless comfort, is also a bit pathetic. I refuse to have a sofa in my home (really) and I’m not interested in bourgeois pampering on the bike either. Some 21st-century cyclists have a panic attack if they’re fleetingly a bit thirsty, hungry, warm, cold, or damp. It’s embarrassing.

Spoken like a man that's never been for a serious ride. Do a 100/12hr/24hr TT or any 300k+ audax and tell me comfort isn't important.

team47b

It's winter

antfly

Cotton pants, t-shirts, jeans ! You were lucky....

keef66

I started cycling in tracksuit bottoms and trainers, and wearing an old Aston Villa goalkeeper's jersey from the Mark Bosnich era.

Over the years I have picked up some real bargains at significant discounts from Wiggle or CRC. Most have been a massive improvement in fit and function compared to the stuff they replaced.

My Gore Windstopper top works splendidly, as does my Goretex Paclite shell. My bibshorts are also very comfortable on the bike.

My Giro Atmos helmet replaced an old Cratoni MTB lid from years ago, and it's noticeably lighter and much better ventilated.

Maybe our temperate maritime climate has something to do with it. If the temperature gets anywhere near 30c I'm to be found lying in the paddling pool

Sprool

an amusing read. Methinks some cyclists take themselves and their sport/hobby much too seriously

Wily-Quixote

Sprool wrote:

an amusing read. Methinks some cyclists take themselves and their sport/hobby much too seriously

Yep. methinks some people took my post too seriously...

responding to a patently tongue in cheek rant with indignation is always kind of self-defeating, I would have thought.

luv2ride

ct8282 wrote:

My Gore wind stopper stops the wind so well, in fact when I walk out the door wearing mine the wind in my local area just, well, stops. The local people come to me on windy days asking me to put on my 'magic' top. The other day I saw a boy on the field flying a kite with his dad. Just for laughs I put on my magic top and watched as the boys kite slowly dropped from the sky. It was cruel but made me chuckle for .0000005 seconds.

Enjoyed this

Have to say that my Goretex Paclite Waterprooof Jacket is good, but not great, given it got a best in "best in test" in a well known cycling mag a year or two back. Still gets quite wet inside after cycling hard, and has done from new. Don't know whether expectations are too high, or whether 'lesser' jackets really aren't as good. Rarely used now as a consequence...but still glad I have it in case

gavbarron

Put it in context. A Gore jacket will never breathe as well as a regular jersey, of course it can't, but wear one after wearing a 'mac in a PAC' type jacket that doesn't even breathe at all and you'll be amazed at how much the Gore does actually breathe.

keef66

Luv2ride wrote:

ct8282 wrote:

My Gore wind stopper stops the wind so well, in fact when I walk out the door wearing mine the wind in my local area just, well, stops. The local people come to me on windy days asking me to put on my 'magic' top. The other day I saw a boy on the field flying a kite with his dad. Just for laughs I put on my magic top and watched as the boys kite slowly dropped from the sky. It was cruel but made me chuckle for .0000005 seconds.

Enjoyed this

Have to say that my Goretex Paclite Waterprooof Jacket is good, but not great, given it got a best in "best in test" in a well known cycling mag a year or two back. Still gets quite wet inside after cycling hard, and has done from new. Don't know whether expectations are too high, or whether 'lesser' jackets really aren't as good. Rarely used now as a consequence...but still glad I have it in case

I was an early adopter of Goretex in the late 70's when I was mountaineering. Those first fabrics were phenomenally breathable, but the PTFE membrane was not protected from dirt, and once contaminated they let water in as fast as out. Later fabrics are less breathable, but easier to live with in the real world. I can tell my Paclite shell is breathing because of the condensation along the taped seams. I'd clearly be soaked in a fully impermeable jacket.

dennisn

I once bought a small mini pump that claimed to "easily pump to 120 PSI". Never came close. Oh, but wait, I'm sorry, we've ALL done that. Didn't mean to bring up bad memories. :oops:

desweller

Any Italian-made item of cycling clothing. Whose body they use as a template for 'large' I'll never know, but he must have had no lungs.

petemadoc

Wily-Quixote wrote:

1. Lake BOA shoes.

Agree, I had a pair of these and they are sh1t

2. Gore Windstopper.

Dunno, haven't got one but my gore overshoes are good

3. Anything by sealskin.

Agree agree agree! Sealskin stuff is cr4p beyond belief and does not ever do what it says on the packet!

4. Helmets

Err, I don't think I sweat as much as you

5. Bib shorts.

Disagree, bibshorts are da bomb

dmclite-3.0

Some good points, well presented. The only thimg to let down a funny and tongue in cheek post was the pedants who answered seriously. You guys.... :P