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santini/prendas greg lemond l/s agrigel/adr/bottechia jersey

i am not what you might describe as a practical sort of fellow. a bit like my father, the biggest contribution i can make to diy, is an unsightly pile of newspapers and magazines on the floor beside the armchair. granted, i can strip and re-assemble an entire bicycle with my eyes closed, but that's a skill seemingly non-transferable when it comes to fitting shelves, cupboards, wallpapering or painting skirting boards.

'pragmatic' might be a more apt apellation.

the practicality aspect is equally missing from my velocipedinal life, though the occasional aberration surfaces now and again. for example, since i do not wear a watch when riding, i have a garmin affixed to the handlebars with the clock filling the topmost display. agreed, it's a bit like using a jcb to crack a nut, but a practical solution nonetheless.

however, not that i would ever admit to training in any way shape or form, on those secret saturdays when i can go riding on my own, i have been known to push the envelope more than is strictly necessary for a fellow of my advanced years. that said, i'm very much an acolyte of il campionissimo and eddy himself. the former has been quoted as allegedly having said the three most important aspects of training are ride a bike, ride a bike and ride a bike. eddy was slightly more circumspect, simply advising that no matter how much or how little riding you do, as long as you ride your bike, all will be well with the world.

and it is.

nor, it prides me to say, am i what i believe is referred to as an 'early adopter'. when there are new versions of the mac operating system, i'm happy to wait till someone else has fallen foul of the inevitable bugs. and i'm pretty sure that you're all fed up with my remonstrations against mobile phones. however, if you are possessed of the competitive gene, it is probably incumbent upon you to grab every marginal gain you can find. it was that mentality, in part, that allowed american, greg lemond, to arrive in paris a mere eight seconds faster than frenchman, the late laurent fignon.

the latter was convinced that, in the final day's time-trial of the 1989 tour de france, there was precious little chance of his being deposed from the potential top step of the podium. lemond's winning margin was achieved, according to legend, by the fitting of a pair of scott tri-bars to his bottechia bicycle. as if to underline the impracticality to which i admitted above, i had a pair of those very tri-bars still in the original box, having never been affixed to any bicycle in my possession.

that very bright, chartreuse yellow jersey, bedecked with adr and agrigel logos, amongst others, was originally manufactured and supplied by santini, surely one of recent history's more iconic jerseys, but missing from the readily available heritage jerseys, after which many of us clamour when wishing to promote cycling's oft-mentioned 'rich heritage'. thankfully, prendas ciclismo supremo, andy storey, a far more practical man than yours truly, has persuaded the folks at santini to rescue the original design from the archives and make it available in both short-sleeve and long-sleeve versions. in the interest of co-ordinating and accessorising, there's also a matching casquette.

the long-sleeve version features a full-length zip; pull it to the collar and flip it downwards and it locks in position. a neat touch. that zip is fully covered to maintain the integrity of the design and is affixed to a fleece backed fabric that was admittedly a tad on the cosy side for late august, but with winter already on the way, it is pragmatism personified, from my point of view. there are three capacious rear pockets, augmented by a zipped fourth in the centre. the hem 'neath those pockets, is backed with gloopy stuff to keep everything where it's supposed to be.

wearing both cap and jersey pretty much ensured barely a single instance of smidsy, though i did encounter having a car door opened in front of me in shore street by a visitor who quite patently never looked first. and, rather obviously, i made it to debbie's eight-seconds quicker than usual.

the prendas/santini adr/agrigel/bottechia jersey is available in sizes ranging from xs to 8xl (yes, really) at a price of £79.99. the short sleeve version retails at £64.99. the matching cap is priced at £8.99, and the similarly coloured dryarn-carbon prendas socks (kindly supplied to match) retail at £6.99.

prendas santini greg lemond l/s jersey

sunday 25 august 2019