Rapha has gone again to the drafting board with its range-topping Professional Staff 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 snug excessive efficiency shorts ever.
Rapha says that it’s let its EF Training professionals unfastened sitting on the pad, which it says has already been highway examined over a complete of 400,000km. The brand 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 shortly.
The seat pad is sewn into a brand new cloth construction which reduces the variety of panels and seams. There’s a brand new cloth 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 brand new shorts function fewer seams and a brand new seat pad (Picture credit score: Dan King for Rapha)
The leg hems are laser lower, there are lay-flat bib straps and a mesh waist part, which Rapha says present optimum match, performance and assist.
We awarded the second technology Rapha Professional Staff bib shorts 4.5 stars once we reviewed them in 2021 after 18 months of use, with Tech Editor Josh Croxton summing up his assessment by saying: “Actually snug in all situations, indoors and out, and nonetheless going robust after 18 months of frequent use.”
Street examined by Lachlan Morton
Lachlan Morton wore the brand new shorts to smash a 40 12 months report in New Zealand in January (Picture 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 journey across the periphery of Australia in September 2024. However 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 journey of 18 hours and 28 minutes, beating a report that had stood for 40 years.
Based on Morton: “From Auckland to Wellington, I didn’t discover them in any respect, and that is the best reward I may give. That’s what I would like from my bib shorts.”
The newest race content material, interviews, options, evaluations and knowledgeable shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
Morton has advised Cyclingnews that he plans to sit back on huge challenges for some time, which appears truthful. He has a string of gravel races lined up although, main as much as the defence of his Unbound title on the finish of Might.
Pricing, sizing, colors and availability
Two leg lengths enable cyclists of various heights to get a great match (Picture credit score: Dan King for Rapha)
The brand new Rapha Professional Staff III bib shorts can be found for women and men, priced at £240. Though costly, that’s the identical worth because the earlier model and undercuts the £300 Rapha Professional Staff Powerweave shorts although, which we rated among the many finest bib shorts we’ve examined
Males’s sizes vary from XS to XXL, whereas girls’s Professional Staff III shorts are bought in XXS to XL sizes. There’s a selection of two leg lengths and 4 colors for the boys’s shorts: Black/Black, Black/White, Inexperienced/White, and Darkish Navy/White. Girls’s shorts are available in Black/White, Inexperienced/White, and Darkish Navy/White.
