A couple weeks back my trusty Patagonia Snap-T Synchilla that's been with me since college mysteriously "disappeared" at a coffee shop. Needless to say, I was mad to lose such a long owned and well used piece of clothing.
Today, I go to check out what colors they come in now so I can make that my one wish for the coming holiday season. Thankfully I find they still make the Snap-T...BUT WTH happened to the cut and sizing?! When I pulled a medium (same size I had) off the rack, I could not believe how HUGE it was! I honestly assumed it was mislabeled. Then I looked at the small...it was a bit smaller, but I realized it was the fit that had changed. It's like it lost all shape and became a trash bag with holes in it. I realize baggy fit was in for a while, but never really associated that with outdoor apparel. So it seems I'll have to find an old one if I want the same thing. Ugh. This got me thinking about cycling specific clothing and how (or if) it's changed. For the most part the lycra set has remained unchanged...tight and stretchy is tight and stretchy. But my interest was with styles closer to and specifically Rivendell type items. I noticed a couple of the new clothing items have specifically undergone a "slimming" recently and mentioned as requested. Not that I saw any of their clothes as baggy per say, but more relaxed. I'm fairly normal 5'8" @ 145lbs so I tend to skirt the small/medium in the MUSA range depending on cut. SO for me a slimmer cut is fine and will most likely fit as intended. But then I know some of the older wool jerseys were more traditionally form fitting. My medium Seersucker fits a little loose in the body, but the collar and sleeves are spot on. Same with the Railroad shirt. Interestingly I have a couple pair of old MUSA shorts in size XL! that work fine on my 32 waist. Weird. I've been biking since about 88 and realized that aside from the lycra, all my casual cycling gear has been purchased based on the same fit. Room enough to move, but never baggy. That has worked no matter what type of riding I'm doing. All that brought me to thinking about bike fit and sizing too. There has been lots of discussion on the RBW vs. conventional types of fitting and it's probably safe that if you're here you at least in part agree with the former. But then it seems RBW fitting has evolved over time too. Looking at the first All Rounder it was clearly not a bars above the saddle fit. The head tubes got taller, then up sloping top tubes, and newly designed bars to go even higher. I wonder if it will keep going up? Do you find yourself wishing that a certain era of "fit" had frozen in time or do you tend to like the evolving nature of it? Like my Patagonia fleece, I'm disappointed they changed it as it seemed like a perfect design to ME. But then I'm very happy that the fatter tire revolution seems to be gaining steam. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
