Café du Cycliste Jeanne bib shorts review

Behind their Côte d’Azur French chic, there’s a technical side to Café du Cycliste’s collection of cycling kit, with a range of quality fabrics and added-value features. The Café du Cycliste Jeanne bib shorts exemplify this perfectly. They’re designed for riding in poorer weather and made of a fleece-backed Roubaix style fabric. And they’re also surface treated for water repellency, so that when you run water from the tap over them it just beads up and runs off. So they’re great for riding in the cool wet weather more typical of the UK summer than the south of France.

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Café du Cycliste also puts a top notch pad from CyTech in the Jeanne. It uses three different foam densities and is very comfortable for long rides: the sort of pad which you don’t notice even after hours of riding.

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The fit of the Café du Cycliste Jeanne bib shorts is also excellent. It’s supportive without being tight anywhere or having any loose fabric either. The insulated material goes quite a long way up the front and back of the shorts before giving way to wide seamless straps which hold the shorts up well without bunching or becoming uncomfortable. There’s a mesh section holding them in place at the back.

The leg grippers are single layer, hemless and in contrasting green – there’s a navy blue version available too. They have wide micro-silicone grippers on the inside. Unlike the rest of the shorts they are not water resistant though, so they do wet out.

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I’ve worn and washed the Café du Cycliste Jeanne bib shorts shorts throughout the winter and spring. They still do the water beading trick, although they are beginning to wet out under the seatpad – hardly surprising given the abrasion which the surface coating suffers here.

Visit the Café du Cycliste website for more details.