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review

Alé Cycling PRR Ponente Winter Bib Shorts

9
£95.00

VERDICT:

9
10
Smart idea very well executed - the perfect companion for your leg warmers
Weight: 
150g
Contact: 

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Pair them with leg warmers when it's cold or wear them on their own when it's just slightly chilly: Alé Cycling's PRR Ponente winter bib shorts help keep your bum and bits cosy.

One of the arguments for a nice pair of Roubaix leg warmers is that they enable you to keep on using that favourite pair of super-comfy bib shorts for a few more months as the days get shorter, rather than having to consign them to the back of the kit draw until spring. However, as the mornings get colder, you can sometimes feel that your fleece-lined leg warmers are keeping your pins toasty, but your lycra bibs aren't doing the same for your, er, higher-up bits.

This is where Alé's winter bibs come into play. They're no longer than summer bibs but use a heavier weight Super Roubaix fabric with a lightweight fleecy lining. It's not a unique idea; DHB and Capo Lombardia (and probably others) have a similar product in their range. It makes a lot of sense for autumn and spring, when you might encounter single-digit temperatures at the start of a ride but still welcome the option to strip off the leg warmers as things hot up.

If you're riding mid-winter then a good pair of bib tights is probably the right choice, but in the real world (where you buy a finite amount of nice kit with your own money) it's great to have a pair of quality bib shorts that work across a wider range of temperatures. Alé (as in "allez", not real ale) is a relatively new addition to the market, made by the same people behind Giordana. Alé gear seems to be mostly aimed at the premium but not super high-end market, offering a number of bibs in the £75 to £95 price range. These winter bibs come in at £95 but you can find them online for a bit less, putting them on price somewhere between the dhb and Capo Lombardia options I mentioned above. Arguably they'll see most competition from water-resistant bibs like Castelli's Nanoflex. There's no water-resistance here, so they are best for dry days.

Alé's range (and their website) are not the most easy to understand, but the PRR group appears to include their most technical products. There's a lot of guff like "PRR is the extreme synthesis of Alé philosophy" and so on, which doesn't tell us a great deal, but Alé are already supplying kit to pro teams such as Bardiani, so it's likely to be good stuff. We were impressed with their summer bibs earlier this year.

Construction is first-rate, with excellent quality stitching reinforced in all the right places. Flat-lock seams are used throughout, mostly with intricate four-row stitching as neat as any I've seen.

The materials used are of excellent quality and feel great against the skin. The Super Roubaix fabric used for the majority of the bibs is soft and offers more warmth than a summer lycra, while still remaining breathable. The wide leg grippers and bib straps are made from a raw-cut polyester fabric with a high (46%) elastane content, which makes it both super stretchy and rather slinky. It's lovely, and reminds me of the leg grippers on Castelli's Free Aero Race bibs. There isn't a silicone gripper strip here as it is the elastane woven into the material that grips, and it does so pretty comfortably. It also works very well to keep your leg warmers in place.

The bib straps are similarly comfortable, but when putting the bibs on, they invariably get twisted up into a rope. Running a thumb underneath them sorts it out, and that done they generally stay well in place. Between the straps is a mesh panel which Alé describes as being a "super-compact network of carbon fibers". This might sound like bollocks to you, but... no, actually it does to me too. In any case, it does a good job of keeping the straps where you want them while allowing some air movement on your back, so that's good.

The pad used here is the 4H, which - unlike in pencils - doesn't indicate an uncomfortable hardness. It's a relatively simple design of constant thickness across the main area, with a cutout in the middle and perforations right across the pad surface to help keep things dry. The 4H is the medium distance model of their range, with the 8H being the long distance version - we might perhaps assume that H is hours.

Alé asserts that the 4H uses 90 kg/cm2 density foam. Luckily this also appears to be patent nonsense, otherwise these would be the heaviest bibs we'd ever tested. The covering fabric is soft and the positioning of the pad is spot-on; I never found myself needing to adjust its position. I found it very comfortable across a good range of distances including the odd all-dayer. That makes these one of only two or three bibs that I own where I can back from 100km with zero discomfort. On the outside of the pad I did notice some abrasion on the lycra after I'd used the bibs a couple of times, but it didn't get any worse with further use.

The visuals are pretty logo-heavy, with huge Alé branding down the outside of each leg and repeated in no less than six other locations. If fluoro yellow isn't your thing you can have it in fluoro green too, with red being the remaining option for those who maintain that fluoro is last year's thing. The logos are all printed into the fabric, so won't peel off over time. Aside from the logos, the lowers are all black, with white uppers. The long seams down the rear of the legs are reflective, offering modest visibility benefits for night-time riding. You'll doubtless have already formed an opinion about the looks, so you don't need me to tell you whether it looks super pro or a bit garish.

As the side panels are lined with a white fleece, this means that when stretched the black colour can lighten a bit. You can see it a bit on the first picture in the gallery. This allows you to calibrate how your physique differs from the Italian grimpeur that Alé used for the sizing. As you'd expect from Italian-made kit, sizing is on the small size, but not as small as some Italian brands. I could get into the medium size that Alé sent us (which I certainly couldn't in a Castelli), but it was perhaps a little short of leg and arguably a large would have been a better fit for me.

All in all then I liked Alé's winter bibs a lot. They're in a relatively uncrowded market segment, and while you can buy decent bibs for half this price, the quality of materials and construction evident here is really top drawer; it is genuinely quite easy to see the differences if you compare these to £50 bibs. They work well on their own when it's just warm enough not to need full leg covering, and are also as a good a companion to Roubaix leg-warmers as I've yet used.

Verdict

Smart idea very well executed - the perfect companion for your leg warmers

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road.cc test report

Make and model: Alé Cycling PRR Ponente Winter Bib Short

Size tested: Medium

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Winter bib shorts for cold conditions, ideal for using in conjunction with leg warmers. The soft fleece fabric provides exceptional comfort whilst helping to retain heat. Ideal shorts for a modern and eye-catching look.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Suggested for Winter conditions 5-10°

Thermal fleece fabric to ensure maximum comfort

'Free system bib' which combines Alé elastic band with carbon fabric inserts

Reflective piping along the leg

LG Stability System™ in the bottom of the leg, a 60mm elastic band with silicon woven in the structure to keep the bibs in place and distribute pressure on the leg

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
10/10

Very high quality construction indeed, combining technical fabrics and some of the best stitching I've seen.

Rate the product for performance:
 
9/10

Work brilliantly with leg warmers; very comfortable with or without. I'd have no qualms about wearing these for all but the very longest of rides.

Rate the product for durability:
 
8/10

The only question mark comes from the saddle abrasion evident after only a couple of rides, otherwise the fantastic quality construction should see these last a good while.

Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
8/10

Put them on and forget about them. For several hours, at any rate.

Rate the product for value:
 
8/10

You can buy these for less than £90 but they are made in Italy to a standard which I'd expect from £150 bibs - really impressive.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Very well. Alé say they are designed for use with leg-warmers and they work a treat.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

The fact that my whole lower body was kept warm, rather than having roubaix-insulated legs and chilly nethers. Top-drawer construction quality.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Not much. Takes a second longer to put them on because you always need to straighten out the bib straps, but this isn't really a big deal.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.

Would you consider buying the product? Yes.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes.

Overall rating: 9/10

About the tester

Age: 36  Height: 190cm  Weight: 78kg

I usually ride: Boardman CX team for the daily commute  My best bike is: Rose Xeon CRS

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Most days  I would class myself as: Expert

I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, time trialling, cyclo cross, commuting, touring, club rides, sportives, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb,

 

Jez spends his days making robots that drive cars but is happiest when on two wheels.  His roots are in mountain biking but he spends more time nowadays on the road, occasionally racing but more often just riding. 

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