There is a staggering amount of choice when it comes to bib shorts. There’s also a staggering amount of pricing variation. When you see the price of some of the big names you might shake your head. Is cycling only for the wealthy? We don’t think so, and for our part we do our best to include quality budget options in our list of the best cycling shorts.
One brand we haven’t talked about before though is The Black Bibs. If you start looking for recommendations of inexpensive bib shorts, there’s no doubt that this name will come up; you might have heard ex-pro cyclist Phil Gaimon discussing them through his considerable social platforms. They have such a following that we felt like no deep dive on the subject of inexpensive bib shorts would be complete without including them. However, there’s a saying “buy cheap, buy twice” – does that ring true here? Let’s find out.
Now that we’ve spent time testing them, we are ready to share our thoughts. So, if you are looking for an alternative to the big budget bib short options, keep reading to see if the bargain option from The Black Bibs is money well spent or a waste.
Design and aesthetics
The name for The Black Bibs is all about aesthetics. It’s one of the driving forces behind marketing and identity and it’s all about being plain, simple, and without branding. The reality is that there are very few current cycling bib shorts with large branding. You’ll find it here and there, MAAP and PAS Normal are both guilty, but for the most part, the branding on bib shorts is pretty minimal. Which is to say, take the marketing how you will but it’s certainly true that The Black Bibs original are devoid of any branding.
Branding is one way that designers add style to a bib short. Clever use of graphics in the form of logos and names is exactly why MAAP and PAS Normal feature the branding they do. In the absence of that, The Black Bibs finds movement in the aesthetics through a circular motif. The edge of a chamois is almost always in a circular shape near the groin and The Black Bibs echo that in the rest of the panels.
The low back features a circular panel where the shoulder straps connect to the lower portion. The actual connection to the straps is a curved line that cuts the panel like a bite of a cookie. Below that, the bibs use separate pieces for each side and in…
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