A change to this half-century-old clothing design choice could be safer, faster, and in keeping with tradition.
Cor Vos, Castelli, Ronan Mc Laughlin, Josh Weinberg
Why are pockets on our backs?
Go back over a hundred years, to the earliest editions of the Tours de France and various Monuments that define professional cycling today and clearly a lot has changed. Mostly for the better, riders don’t smoke cigarettes during stages these days or reweld their own frames mid-stage. Highly formulated energy drinks have long since replaced brandy and support cars mean riders no longer carry spare tyres around their torsos.
They do, though, still carry their own food in pockets on their jerseys, albeit with one crucial difference: While back in the early 1900s those pockets were on their chests, they’re now on our lower backs.
Castelli recently announced its Unlimited Speedsuit, a one-piece jersey and shorts suit designed for gravel and ultra-endurance racing. Sure, it still has three rear pockets on the lower back, but Castelli has honed in on nutrition and hydration carrying capacity for these solo races with two extra pockets on the front of the legs and a bladder-carrying pocket between the shoulders on the upper back.
Cargo pockets are hardly new. Unlike traditional road racing, where team cars and feed zones handle much of the logistics, gravel and ultra-distance events are often largely self-supported like road racing was a century ago. Riders must often carry hours’ worth of nutrition and hydration, tools, a phone, spare layers, and any other items they think are needed. That list of equipment stretches the limits of the classic three-pocket jersey layout, and clothing brands are increasingly experimenting with cargo pockets, integrated storage, and now race suits designed around carrying capacity rather than just comfort and/or aerodynamics.
The Unlimited Speedsuit is focused on cargo options as much as it is aerodynamics. The real trick is when we start to combine the two.
Otherwise, the Unlimited suit is as you’d expect from a modern race suit with a second-skin fit and “aero sleeves.” Castelli has partially delivered on a concept I’ve long thought not only made perfect sense, but could provide a significant advantage … even in road racing. In fact, when Castelli unveiled the Unlimited Pro 2 jersey a few years ago, I couldn’t fathom why they didn’t make it a one-piece suit, and I remember having conversations this time last year about what I’d want from an Ultra suit. Castelli’s announcement of the new suit got me thinking … “Rear pockets are a little mad.”
The new Unlimited suit gets close to what I want, but I’d have so many more pockets if it were up to me. Pockets on the rear of the legs, pockets on the sleeves, and, crucially, pockets on the front of the torso. Why so? Well, there are a few reasons. And while gravel and ultra racing might be the disciplines currently pushing brands to rethink storage, the underlying idea applies far more broadly. Whether it’s road racing, training rides, or all-day adventures, riders are carrying more food and equipment than ever before.
The question for me is: If we’re carrying all this stuff anyway, can we place it in such a way that it actually improves performance and safety rather than just making us slower?
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