The Assos Equipe RSR Bolide Jersey S11 is a spectacularly technical, uncompromisingly fast feeling race jersey that uses some of the most exotic fabrics I have encountered in cycling clothing. It also costs as much as a Jet2 holiday.
Assos calls this its fastest and most aerodynamic racing jersey, having employed wind tunnel development, WorldTour feedback and lessons from its RAPIDFIRE Chronosuit.
There is clearly a serious amount of engineering behind it, and on the bike the combination of textured fabrics and an almost painted-on fit certainly makes you feel as though you are cheating the wind.
Whether it actually saved enough watts to explain a handful of Strava PBs around my regular Mendips and Cotswolds test loops is impossible to say. Assos does not publish a simple watt saving versus a conventional jersey, so some of that speed may have been AeroScience and some may simply have been the psychological effect of turning up dressed like a human golf ball.
Either way, this is an extraordinary jersey. The problem is that at nearly £300, it really needs to be.
Materials and construction
The premium experience starts before you even put it on. The Bolide arrives neatly presented, and the packaging gives the impression that something considerably more exotic than a normal cycling jersey is waiting inside.
That impression continues once you handle it. There is very little conventional jersey material here. Almost every panel has a particular texture, structure or apparent purpose.
Across the chest and stomach Assos uses its Hawk 01 fabric, a tightly fitted woven material with an open rhombus structure. It says the texture is designed to manage surface turbulence while also providing excellent cooling and gentle compression. The same family of fabric technology is used on the jersey section of its RAPIDFIRE Chronosuit.
The sleeves and backs of the shoulders use Eagle 01, which has clearly visible directional channels running through the fabric. Assos says these are positioned according to the airflow seen when riding aggressively, guiding air across the upper arms and shoulders and encouraging smoother airflow as it leaves the upper back. Even the seams joining these panels are bonded rather than conventionally stitched, removing another small ridge that could disturb the air.
It all sounds wonderfully nerdy, but you can genuinely feel the engineering when holding the jersey. The textured sleeves and diamond shaped construction through the torso look and feel purposeful, giving you the satisfying suspicion that you possess a small technological advantage over the club mate beside you wearing a more conventional jersey.
Whether that advantage survives after they have done an extra 10W all winter is another matter.
The rear uses Assos’ ultralight Hill Rombo textile, which prioritises airflow and cooling rather than aerodynamic surface treatment. The brand rates the jersey at its maximum five out of five for both breathability and quick drying, and recommends it for temperatures above 21°C.
That mixture of aggressive aero fabrics on the leading surfaces and extremely open material across the back makes a lot of sense in practice.
Aero performance
I do not have access to a wind tunnel, and unfortunately my local Cotswold lanes remain disappointingly short on calibrated aerodynamic testing equipment.
Unlike Rapha, with some of its aero clothing, Assos does not provide a simple figure saying this jersey saves X watts at a particular speed compared with another model. That makes objectively quantifying its performance difficult. What I can say is that it certainly feels fast.
I tested it on familiar roads around the Mendips and Cotswolds, including regular segments where I have enough previous rides to know how I normally perform. During testing, I managed several PBs.
Was that because Hawk 01 and Eagle 01 were delicately manipulating the boundary layer around my shoulders, or because wearing a £295 race jersey persuaded my brain that I ought to pedal harder? I honestly could not tell you. Probably a little of both.
The important thing is that there is absolutely no loose material. In an aggressive riding position the jersey feels incredibly clean, with the sleeves clamped around the arms and the torso completely free from flapping or bunching. If you believe the first rule of aerodynamic clothing is simply stopping your jersey behaving like a small parachute, the Bolide has certainly nailed that part.
Fit
Calling the fit close would be doing it a considerable disservice.
It progresses from skin tight, through drumskin tight, before arriving at what may genuinely be the tightest cycling jersey I have ever worn.
Assos itself describes the fit as Super Aero. It says it’s used AEPD body mapping to create a true second skin shape across the chest, arms, shoulders and upper back when riding aggressively.
This is no exaggeration.
I was towards the upper end of the recommended size range for my large test jersey, but even accounting for that I found it exceptionally snug. Getting the zip closed required some determination, and the fit around my shoulders and biceps was particularly restrictive when standing upright.
I would probably size up at least once, and potentially twice – although there is an obvious catch. Go too large and introduce wrinkles into those carefully engineered aero fabrics and you may undo part of the reason for buying the thing in the first place.
This is clearly clothing developed around the proportions of elite racers. If your upper body bears more resemblance to a normal human being than a WorldTour climber, trying one on before buying would be wise.
Once bent over the bike, the logic becomes clearer. The tension through the torso relaxes, the panels settle into position and the entire garment feels considerably more natural. This is unequivocally a jersey designed around riding quickly rather than standing around outside the café discussing tyre pressures.
Hot weather performance
The flipside of making something this tight is that it needs to breathe extremely well, and thankfully it does.
I used the Bolide during some of this summer’s hottest riding, including fast weekend pacelines, Strava efforts and the inevitable bunch sprint where everyone insists they are not going to sprint until approximately three seconds before doing exactly that.
Even when working hard, the jersey manages heat exceptionally well.
The open structure across the back allows a huge amount of airflow, and the more structured front and sleeve materials never felt oppressively heavy. The difference is particularly noticeable once you are moving quickly, where the jersey seems to actively encourage air through rather than simply relying on thin material.
Assos also leaves the fabrics intentionally unpressed so their three dimensional surface structures remain intact, which it says preserves both the aerodynamic characteristics and cooling performance.
Sweat dries rapidly too. For something that fits almost impossibly close to the skin, I rarely felt saturated or clammy once moving again after a hard effort.
Pockets and practicality
The pursuit of speed does bring compromises. Assos uses what it calls zeroSeam pockets, designed to hold essentials without adding unnecessary seams or structure. They certainly look wonderfully clean, and because the jersey is so tight there is almost no chance of the pockets bouncing around.
The problem is that they are simply not deep enough.
My regular iPhone 13 Pro only just fitted inside, with relatively little material extending above it. The incredibly tight jersey meant it never actually felt likely to escape, but I would still prefer more pocket depth for reassurance when carrying something worth several hundred pounds down a potholed descent.
I understand the rationale. Fill three enormous pockets with a rain jacket, bananas, multitool and half the contents of your kitchen cupboard and much of the beautifully controlled airflow around your back probably disappears.
But a couple more centimetres of fabric would make the jersey substantially easier to live with without turning it into a touring jacket.
Colour and care
There is precisely one colour choice: White Series. It looks fantastic.
It is also white cycling clothing being used in Britain.
For something designed primarily for hot, dry race conditions the colour makes sense, and it certainly looks suitably professional paired with black bib shorts. But even during the height of summer, Britain’s roads have an impressive ability to present an unexplained patch of filthy water and fire it directly up your back.
Expect to develop a close working relationship with the tub of Vanish if you want it to remain pristine.
Fortunately, care itself is straightforward. I found a normal cold wash inside a pillowcase followed by air drying was all it needed, with none of the elaborate laundering rituals that sometimes accompany exceptionally technical garments.
Warranty and crash support
There is at least some reassurance when spending this much on something made from exceptionally lightweight fabric.
Assos gives the jersey a two-year warranty, and its crash policy is unusually useful. If a garment is damaged in a crash within the first 30 days after purchase, the company says it will repair or replace it free of charge. After that initial period, damaged products can still be assessed for repair, with the cost determined according to the garment and damage.
That does not make £295 suddenly inexpensive, but it is reassuring given that this is exactly the sort of jersey likely to be worn while racing, sprinting and generally increasing the probability of finding yourself unexpectedly acquainted with the tarmac.
Value and rivals
Now we arrive at the elephant wearing an extremely aerodynamic jersey in the room: the Assos Equipe RSR Bolide Jersey S11 costs £295.
That is an extraordinary amount of money for a short sleeve cycling jersey and substantially more than some of the best speed focused jerseys previously tested on road.cc.
The Castelli Aero Race 8S costs £169 and combines aero development with excellent breathability and considerably more practical rear pockets.
The Rapha Pro Team Aero Jersey is £190 and, importantly, Rapha actually quantified its development by claiming a 4W saving over the previous version at 46km/h. It also retains three conventional pockets plus a zipped card pocket.
Then there is the Santini Redux Speed Jersey, now £170, another wind tunnel developed aero jersey that delivered excellent performance despite itself being considered extremely expensive at the time.
Against those, the Bolide costs another £105 to £126.
You can see where some of that money goes. These are genuinely exotic fabrics, the construction is exquisite, and Assos has clearly invested heavily in aerodynamic development. Wind tunnels, specialist textiles and WorldTour testing are not inexpensive things to incorporate into a product.
The rest of the matching system makes the numbers even more entertaining. Assos currently lists the matching RSR Bolide Bib Shorts at £295, Speed Gloves at £75 and Bolide Socks at £85. That makes £750 before you have even considered the matching £110 booties.
At that point, we are approaching money that could make a considerably more meaningful difference elsewhere in many riders’ cycling lives.
That really defines who this jersey is for. If you already have the aero bike, deep wheels, fast tyres, optimised pressures, aero helmet, sensible position and a training plan, then chasing the final scraps of clothing drag starts to make sense. In that world, £295 for another marginal gain might be entirely rational. For almost everyone else, it probably is not.
For only slightly more than £300, you could put together a very respectable DIY cycling training camp somewhere warm. A few days climbing mountains, riding consistently and avoiding the British weather would probably find more watts than even the cleverest arrangement of rhombuses on your stomach.
It just would not look quite as fast in the café.
Conclusion
The Assos Equipe RSR Bolide Jersey S11 is an extraordinary piece of cycling clothing.
Its materials feel genuinely innovative, the construction is exquisite, cooling performance is superb and the astonishingly tight fit leaves absolutely nothing flapping in the wind. I cannot objectively say how many watts it saved, but several PBs during testing suggest it certainly did not slow me down, and there is an undeniable psychological boost from putting on something that feels this purposeful.
The compromises are equally obvious. Sizing is brutally aggressive, the pockets need to be deeper, white is not particularly practical, and £295 is extremely difficult to justify when excellent aero jerseys from Castelli, Rapha and Santini cost well over £100 less.
If you have already exploited almost every other marginal gain available and want one of the most technically ambitious jerseys money can buy, the Bolide makes a strangely compelling case.
For everybody else, spend the money on training, tyres, a cycling holiday or almost anything that generates more watts from the rider rather than attempting to save them from the jersey.
Test Report
What does the manufacturer say about this product?:
Our fastest, most aerodynamic racing jersey, engineered with ASSOS AeroScience, proven in the wind tunnel, and refined with WorldTour feedback. The BOLIDE erases drag to make every watt count.
The RSR BOLIDE Jersey S11 was engineered for aerodynamics. That starts with a front panel of the Hawk-01 textile, which is the same aerodynamic textile as the jersey portion of our RAPIDFIRE Chronosuit S11. Hawk-01 was developed and deployed according to feedback from the WorldTour and Swiss Cycling, and its open rhombus structure grants hyper-cooling breathability with gently compressive, body-mapped support that doesn’t impede breathing – critical for competition in hot conditions at the highest levels.The sleeves and the backs of the shoulders also take cues from the RAPIDFIRE S11, utilizing the ultra-aero Eagle-01 textile to cut drag at your body’s leading edge. While you’re in the drops and every watt matters, the stylized raglan fit aligns Eagle-01’s wind channels to guide airflow across the upper arms, front of shoulders, and back of shoulders. The textile’s unique structure promotes laminar airflow to eliminate turbulence across the jersey’s surface and reduce drag as the air detaches from your upper back. The seams connecting the sleeve panels to the body are bonded, eliminating the wind-catching transitional ridges created by traditional flatlock seams.
Tell us some more about the technical aspects of this product:
Composition
Front 75%PL 25%EA; Sleeve 56%PL 24%PA 20%EA; Back 90%PL 10%EA; Pocket 70%PA 30%EA; Back Bottom 100%PL; Collar 58%PA 42%EA
Sustainability
OEKO-TEX textiles / PFAS free
Season type 1/3 summer
Temperature > +21°C
Riding conditions – Warm
Fit – super aero
Any further comments on quality?:
Exceptionally well made with highly technical fabrics engineered for speed.
Any further comments on performance?:
I can’t verify the aerodynamic savings but this is an out-and-out speedy jersey.
How does the price compare to that of similar products in the market, including ones recently tested?:
Significantly more than the nearest aero jersey rivals, such as the Santini Redux Speed Jersey at £190.
Any further comments on weight?:
Unsurprisingly lightweight given there’s not much material there.
Any further comments on comfort?:
Minimal seams to rub and cause discomfort, but the overall skin tight fit gears it more towards shorter racier rides.
Any further comments on fit?:
Unapologetically tight for aero reasons and there’s a useful fit guide on the Assos website, but it’s firmly aimed at lean racers with minimal upper body mass or shoulder width.
Any comments on sizing? Did it size up too big or too small?:
Sized up small and I’d be looking to size up one or even two sizes provided that didn’t result in excess material that would mitigate any aero benefit.
Any issues with durability?:
No issues so far, but the ultra thin mesh back panel might be damaged easily and the pristine white finish will be hard to keep fresh.
How easy is the product to care for? How did it respond to being washed?:
Easy. Cold 30°C wash and air dry. Minor added instruction of using a wash bag but I made do with a pillow case.
Did you enjoy using the product? Yes
Would you consider buying the product?
No (purely due to price)
Would you recommend the product to a friend?
Maybe if they were the world’s biggest (and richest) aero geek
Use this box to explain your overall score
It’s a phenomenal bit of kit and you can see where the research and development efforts have gone with the technical fabric engineering, but there’s no getting past that price tag.
About the tester
Age: 35Height: 190cmWeight: 92kg
I usually ride: Santa Cruz StigmataMy best bike is: Specialized Tarmac
I’ve been riding for: 10-20 yearsI ride: Most daysI would class myself as: Expert
I regularly do the following types of riding: Road racing, Time trialling, Cyclocross, Gravel riding, Indoor riding, Bikepacking
1 thought on “Assos Equipe RSR Bolide Jersey S11”
Seethrough. It does not look fantastic.