Formed in June 09, Here Come the Belgians is a non-elite anti-team celebrating all things cross, cobbled and Belgian.
Seeking a different experience to the traditional cycling club, its aim is to harness the energy of a vibrant internet cycling community with grass roots racing and riding based around Cyclocross and Spring Classics. There is no race programme in the style of a racing team, more a collection of individual experiences through rides and racing, in whatever location a member may be, that all can share in and contribute toward.

Saturday 29 May 2010

Rapha-phile


As many of you may be aware both crossjunkie and myself have liking/weakness for a certain premium brand of British cycling wear. Now about four or five years ago I purchased their 'Classic' jersey and it has done sterling service since then including summer trips to Provence, the Alps and the Pyrenees (including a Raid Pyrenean). Great for rides out with mates, sportives even occasional chain gang sessions if the ego and legs were feeling resilient enough to take the ribbing. During this time the back of the black jersey 'faded' a little as I would expect with the amount of UV it was being bombarded with. Nothing that worried me it just looked like it had been lived in. Last week I received an email from Rapha entitled 'Classic Jersey Exchange', I almost ignored it thinking it was going to be a heads up for some London based jersey swap where you could bring along your spare old 'Brooklyn' jersey to swap for someone's 'La Vie Claire'. But no...
...on rare occasions we have seen a discolouration of the black version of the jersey due to moisture and extended exposure to sunlight. By no means the norm and perhaps isolated to only a small window of production, we still wanted to check in with you as someone who has bought the classic jersey to be sure it is not something you have experienced.
They asked for customers to return the Jersey for inspection. Now remember this is a four year old well used item of sports kit and Rapha were soliciting returns! That's some customer service. I packaged up the old jersey and Jo posted it off on Wednesday, it had to be worth a shot. Saturday morning arrived together with a knock on the door and our long suffering postie Veronica holding a lovely shiny black plastic envelope, jersey sized, inside was a brand new Classic Jersey and armwarmers:-) So 'Chapeau' Rapha, we may knock some of their more bizzare 'collectors' products but their core kit is exceptionally well built and backed up by great after sales service. So when I'm not sporting Duncan's fabulous designs at the races its got to be Rapha.
Posted by Otleyrich at 02:58

1 comment:

  1. Dr. KO29 May 2010 at 11:22

    Good to know, I'll wear team kit outside in the daylight and the Rapha only in the darkroom or at the 5 a.m. prologue to the train station.

    The old jerseys will be resold as limited twilight edition, as vampires are en vogue. ;-)

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