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rapha city riding range insulated sweatshirt

rapha city riding range insulated sweatshirt

professional american footballer, benjamin russell junior's father (benjamin russell senior) fortuitously owned a clothing manufacturing company. for in 1926, when junior had tired of the itching and chafing engendered by his woollen alabama crimson tide team kit, dad was on hand to assist with the creation of something altogether less tactile. the loose, collarless jumpers that resulted went onto become the sweatshirt that we all know and love, advertising american universities that we've never even seen, let alone attended.

so successful did this clothing transformation turn out to be, that russell senior created a whole new manufacturing division to concentrate on production of sweatshirts which, in 1930, became russell athletic mills. though there have been one or two minor modifications throughout the intervening decades, the beloved garment has remained pretty much true to its alabama roots.

rapha city riding range insulated sweatshirt

however, in the 1980s it was less the sweatshirt that formed the basis of my daily attire, but a rather brightly coloured acrylic jumper. from whence this choice originated, i really cannot recall, but the attraction of wearing it until it eventually succumbed to disintegration, was principally at the proxy behest of probably the greatest bass guitar player in the history of great bass guitar players: jaco pastorius. on the cover of a long-forgotten music magazine was a picture of jaco wearing a jumper not too distantly styled from that of my own. despite my own leanings more heavily skewed towards the percussive side of the musical spectrum, pastorius was pretty much regarded as the epitome of cool; if the jumper was good enough for jaco (my reasoning went), it was more than good enough for me.

you will, of course, realise that nobody else was aware of this verisimilitude and mostly wondered why i couldn't have bought myself a less threadbare jumper. it's just as well that beauty remains in the eye of the beholder.

rapha city riding range insulated sweatshirt

as with pretty much every item of clothing, that brightly coloured acrylic jumper eventually reached the point where i was likely to be arrested for vagrancy if i ventured outdoors wearing it one more time. i have long lamented the demise of that garment, hoping against hope over the intervening years, that i might find a suitably styled replacement, but all to no avail. yet, it seems that patience may well be its own reward.

though no doubt yet another of my idiosyncracies, i have always found a delightful irony in the opportunity to review items from rapha's city riding range, predominantly based on the juvenile notion that i live at least 200 miles from the nearest city. why, i have pointlessly wondered, would you offer the connotation that any number of fine garments are directly conceived for the melée of the city, when my own experiences would demonstrate that they are every bit as worthy when worn in the rural idyll? it is, of course, a facetious rumination, for prior to the city-riding moniker, this particular set of clothing was known as the fixed range; in my own (and others') set of circumstances, every bit as invalid a description.

rapha city riding range insulated sweatshirt

however, the marketing of cycling garments that are less than appropriate for the speeding peloton have need of being categorised in some manner or other and city riding is no more nor less appropriate than any alternative i might think of by myself.

the tenuous connection with jaco pastorius, however, has been rekindled by the arrival of the insulated sweatshirt, nothing at all like the multi-coloured, stripey jumper as described above, but definitely the very garment that i will wear and wear until it disintegrates of its own accord.

the very description of this item as a sweatshirt may be playing fast and loose with the definition. it's certainly not a sweatshirt that benjamin russell junior would recognise; its collar quite defiantly predominates over the collarless original, while the chances of it ever becoming a shapeless lump of cotton are extremely rare. in fact, in this case, its burgundyness offers a quilted surface and polycotton side-panels, along with a quarter zip that can close the collar to keep chills at bay. it is endlessly cosy, but rarely too much so, the sleeves are of an ideal proportion to grab drop bars without exposing frail wrists and it looks every bit as cool as jaco's bass playing sounded.

rapha city riding range insulated sweatshirt

i have worn it 'neath a rapha shadow blazer, a rapha/raeburn thermal jacket and rapha's city-riding wool windjacket as well as a waterproof not originating from imperial works. in fact, i can think of few daily situations both on and off the bike in which the sweatshirt would be found wanting. lest you wish to keep your velocipedinal proclivities to yourself in polite company, the only outward nod to its perpetrator is a darkly reflective logo on the right of the collar. if you rest your chin on your right hand in the boardroom, nobody need ever know.

if there's any justice in the world, this will become as iconic as its 1930s predecessor.

rapha's insulated sweatshirt is available in sizes from xs to xxl and in a colour choice of dark blue, dark navy and rich burgundy (as reviewed) retail price is £140.

rapha city riding insulated sweatshirt

friday 20 october 2017

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