Not all cycling races are created equal

Battle testing Sigr clothes

Apart from looking eye wateringly awesome, cycling clothing needs to be thin and light. This places enormous demands on choosing the correct materials and construction for the job in hand.

Blunt instrument

We need to performance test our clothes and unfortunately automated testing just doesn't cut it. It just doesn't fully replicate the motion of a cyclist. Repetitive rubbing, stretching, wetting, drying, pocket usage and heaven forbid... crashing. The effect of usage on comfort over a long period in the saddle is of course also impossible to gauge without a real person actually wearing the clothes.

Better way

There is of course a rather obvious and much better way. Testing on real cyclists. An even better way is testing on real cyclists taking part in an epic cycling race. Hmmm, who do we know who might fit the bill? Our favourite gang of road warriors Team Sigr, that's who!

Choosing your battles

There are many cycling races all over the world that we could have chosen but we have certain demands. The race must be long and hard with a lot of climbing and a good chance of some bad weather. But the most important criteria for us is that the race must be open to both women and men. Or the holy grail, that men and women can cycle together in mixed teams.

WTAF!?

This task should be easy. Spoiler alert! It wasn't. But more about that later.

The races we came up with that tick our boxes are, drumroll please....

1. The Swedish Tour or Sverigeloppet, Sweden - Team Sigr Road Cycling | Read more here
2. Sverigetempot Brevet, Sweden - Team Sigr Randonneurs | Read more here
3. Styrkeprøven, Norway - Team Sigr Road Cycling | Read more here

A grand total of 4507 km x 10 Team Sigr members = 45 070 km of testing for our clothes!

Comparing ride length

Our races have all of the qualities we needed, a huge number of kilometres to ride along with large climbs and descents and guaranteed bad weather (we're looking at you Norway!) Best of all men and women TOGETHER.

During our research, we came up with some rather astounding facts about the difference between some of the larger global races and our smaller Scandinavian ones.

Comparing equality

Make of that what you will but we think it's pretty clear that there is work to do in the world of cycling today.

Team Sigr are already thinking of journeying over the mountains to take part in Styrkeproven in June. They will miss the Swedish midsummer celebrations. But have no fear, we'll be singing and dancing their praises around the Midsummer pole! Team Sigr is composed equally of women and men and their testing is invaluable to us.

Thanks Team and good luck.