Lightweight, the German brand best known for its high-end wheels, is launching a new range of clothing called the Edelstoff Bike Wear collection.
I know what you're thinking: more bike clothing on the market?!?
Lightweight makes much of the high tech and environmentally friendly nature of its collection.
It introduced an After Bike Wear collection last year but the new Edelstoff clothing – Edelstoff translates as ‘noble stuff’, by the way – is designed for riding.
There are six pieces in the range.
The Rauschbegleiter men’s short sleeve jersey (£119), for example, is made mainly from a light polyester and elastane fabric with the lower sleeves and the sides of the back a merino wool/polyester mesh. It’s a race cut with raglan sleeves, a seamless collar and a full-length YKK zip.
There’s a women’s jersey too, called the Bezwirnbar (£130).
The Trittrausch men’s bib shorts (£179) feature merino wool/polyester mesh too, this time on the back, while the three-layer Elastic Interface pad is said to be suitable for rides of six hours or more.
The range also includes the Umgarnung men’s mesh undershirt (£55), the Lastlos men’s gilet, and the Fernverfuhrung waist shorts for women (£159).
Lightweight reckons the new clothing is the culmination of two years' work and 32,794km of riding by over 30 riders.
“Our Edelstoff Bike Wear range uses a variety of cutting-edge technical materials and fabric treatments, such as merino wool, Coldblack finishing to offer protection against UV rays, Sanitized finishing for antibacterial and odour neutralising, Interpower treatment for optimised temperature regulation as well as Sympatex for water and wind protection,” says Lightweight.
The brand says that the Edelstoff clothing is environmentally friendly. The YKK zippers, for example, are made from recycled PET and the polyester and polyamide fabrics are bluesign certified, meaning that the production is sustainable.
The final manufacture takes place in Portugal, the idea being to keep transport routes relatively short before quality control and packaging atLightweight’s headquarters in Friedrichshafen, Germany.
Mat has worked for loads of bike magazines over 20+ years, and been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. He's been road.cc technical editor for eight years, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a past winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer.