Pockets were first seen 500 years ago on men’s waistcoats. Before then, those in polite society wore either pocketless pantaloons or dresses, and kept their house keys and mobile phones in little bags strung about their waists. Indeed, the bum-bag can be traced back to medieval France, known as it was as le fanny paquet.
Now, I’d wager kangaroos and koalas would have something to say about the intellectual property rights of the pocket, but what isn’t in dispute is how insanely useful they are. Seen something in your house you want to carry upstairs? Put it in your pocket. Going for a ride and need to stash your mini-pump? Put it in your pocket. But hang about, what’s going on here? Why won’t my arms bend that way? Where’s my phone gone? Where am I supposed to put my jacket?
The rules for jersey pockets have long been established: there should be three; they should be of equal size; they should be symmetrical (middle pocket on the spine, end pockets on the kidneys); you shouldn’t need to be a contortionist to reach into one; they should not sag. And yet in recent years I’ve seen a creep in the crap pocket.
First there’s the thin pocket, designed for mini-pumps but really only good for Peperamis and 2B pencils. Then there’s the slanted-top pocket, fun to look at but only as useful as its lowest edge.
There’s also the offset pocket, designed to twist your jersey until your phone is making calls to your belly button, and finally there’s the sagging pocket – perfect for introducing your flapjacks to your bum cheek. Then there’s the no pocket, because why would you want a pocket on your jacket anyway you idiot? You have pockets underneath!
The irony is the worst offenders are the high-end brands, which I can only presume is due to designers trying to avoid redundancy and brands trying to justify their price tags. It’s different so it’s more expensive.
Sadly jerseys and jackets aren’t alone, as the more I ponder, the more I find other bits of bike kit lagging behind too. For example…
Drop the lot
DWR – durable water repellent coating. It seems to work sort of OK in hiking jackets, but in cycling clothing I’ve only ever known DWR to last for around seven minutes. DWR is a fabric coating, coatings come off in rain and washing, and then… it’s not durably water repellent any more. DWR does make water drops look beady for the advertising photos though, which is nice.
‘Waterproof’ overshoes. Sure, the fabric might technically form a water-stopping barrier but it has holes for cleats, heel bumpers and ankles. It will always let in some water.
Helmets. These are some of the most expensive bits of cycling kit, the most used, the most sweated into and yet the most uncleanable. I’m very glad helmet scientists have worked out ways to stop my brain rotating in a crash, but I’d be most grateful if they could please design removable helmet straps for washing. The salt-white rigor mortis that befalls straps is most unbecoming.
The inner gilet. It sounds like something out of Eat, Pray, Love, but is actually a bit of a gilet stitched inside a jacket so it has not one but two zips and ‘layers’. It’s like how a cat has that multiple eyelid thing, only presumably for a cat it serves an evolutionary purpose. As it is, if I want multiple zips I’ll go back to 2008 and visit Superdry.
Touchscreen-compatible gloves. No amount of special silver thread in an index finger is going to make up for the fact that using gloves to operate a touchscreen while riding is like trying to ice a cake in a bumper car.
Laces on shoes. There’s technical brilliance in single-piece knitted uppers and stiffness-indexed soles – it’s like wearing the future. But laces? I’ll concede lace-up shoes do look kind of cool, but so does a moustache on the right person. And are you seriously going to argue laces work better than Boa dials? What’s that, you’ve just done a river-crossing on your bikepacking trip across Finland and now your Boa dials are full of grit? Good for you, pal.
OK, moan over, because in the main bike kit has never been so good – here’s looking at you Shakedry jackets, Castelli Gabbas and cargo-pocket bib shorts. But this is why bad kit sticks out a mile, and hence why it makes me so frustrated – it’s not like there aren’t plenty of great examples out there to copy.
• This article originally appeared in issue 140 of Cyclist magazine. Click here to subscribe
Had a good chuckle at this, especially the Pepperami and 2B pencils. Don’t get us started on pockets in women’s kit…