Cafe du Cycliste Marinette Bib Shorts

These Café du Cycliste Marinette Bib Shorts join a few others in my collection that are just really hard to fault. The material is fantastic against the skin and the pad is basically unnoticeable. It's a fair outlay for a piece of kit, but it's backed up by some excellent craftsmanship and if you want to get away from black they come in a whole range of colours including this Anthracite grey.

Okay, £179 of your hard-earned cash on a pair of bib shorts is a big investment, but if you spend a lot of time in the saddle it'll be money well spent.

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The Marinettes are up there with the most comfortable shorts I've worn – the likes of the 7mesh RK1 and Endura Pro SL bib shorts. They all follow the same theme: excellent fabric which feels great against the skin and an awesome chamois.

The only thing that differs really is the price. The RK1s are a cool £200, while the Enduras manage to achieve this level of luxury at just £119.99.

So, what do you get from Café du Cycliste for the money?

Let's kick off with the pad. Like many, Café du Cycliste has used a chamois from CyTech's Elastic Interface Technology range. It's a good choice – pad comfort is subjective, but I've never used an uncomfortable CyTech pad.

This one has three varying densities of foam covering the saddle shape, with a single central groove running from back to front to relieve a little pressure.

It's a little bulkier than some but not overly so. One thing I do like is that the foam is relatively firm, so it's supportive when you are in the saddle and soaks up the rough surfaces beneath your tyres, but not so thick that it separates you from the bike in terms of feedback.

I did some big rides on both road and gravel wearing these shorts and I was impressed with how they coped with both terrains.

According to the label, the main section of the shorts is made up from 52% polyamide, 32% polyester and 16% elastane. It feels smoother and softer than that used for the majority of bib shorts costing £100 or less, and they are very nice to wear. The material offers good breathability, too, especially on really hot days.

There is plenty of stretch in all directions, so the shorts move with you completely, whether riding steady or out of the saddle and sprinting hard. There's no bunching or anything anywhere.

They don't have quite as many panels used in their construction as the Enduras I mentioned above, so you don't really get that 'shaped' (or 'pre-shaped' if you prefer) riding position from them; they aren't quite as race-orientated as the SL Pros when crouched in the drops, but not so much that you'd notice unless you were wearing them back to back.

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Quite wide leg grippers combined with small silicone dots spread the pressure while keeping the bottom of the shorts in place whatever your riding position.

Continuing the theme of breathability, Café du Cycliste has gone for a lightweight fabric for the bib section, which includes a wide mesh pattern for the central section that covers your spine. It works well, and with a baselayer beneath and a summer jersey on top I never felt any major build-up of sweat when riding hard in the summer sun.

These are manufactured in Albania and the overall quality of the stitching is very good. Everything is neat and tidy, and tugging at the different panels shows no sign that the seams are likely to fail.

As well as this anthracite grey, you can get the Marinettes in navy blue, Limoges (a kind of royal blue), deep red and electric raspberry if you like to jazz up your kit a bit.

> When should you replace your shorts?

Overall, I'd say the Marinettes are very good and worth the outlay. Yes, the performance is similar to the much cheaper Enduras, but they do compete well against the more expensive 7mesh RK1s. If you buy them, you won't be disappointed – especially if you want a bit more colour in your kit.

//301 from 2017//

Verdict

Impressive quality and comfort from a top notch pair of bib shorts