It’s that time of year: Aldi have released their range of Aldi winter cycling 2016 gear. It is also a time when savvy cyclists stock up on clothing, maintenance supplies and the like. Perhaps even the nearest-and-dearest will be getting a few early Christmas presents in.
Mind you, once the cycling range has gone it won’t be long before something else comes along. From time to time you can pick up all kinds of sporty clothing and equipment.
I have commented before that many ‘up market’ cyclists who ride bikes costing thousands will happily wear Aldi gear. Now that’s really interesting!
The Aldi winter cycling 2016 range covers clothing and some basic accessories. Aldi kindly sent me some samples to review and here’s a quick run down:
Cycling rain jacket £16.99
Actually this is very, very good for the price and this year there are a number of improvements and updates. First thing you notice is that it’s changed colour and now it is a yellow-green colour. There is a generous amount of reflective material across the shoulders and arms to make you super reflective at night time.
The jacket claims to be breathable and to help this there are zipped side vents and a mesh liner. Other nice touches are longer arms and a tail which has a wide pocket as you’d expect. There’s a small smart phone pocket on the chest, under a little flap (which is a nice feature).
Normally my family would spring into action and have me standing outside while blasting me with a hosepipe. Sorry folks, this isn’t happening this year so we’ll just have to trust Aldi that the jacket will be okay in the rain. Actually there are taped seams and the overall construction is excellent and for the price it is positively brilliant!
Merino wool base layer
Aldi were kind to send me some Merino wool samples again. This time they sent a long sleeve sports base layer in a nice rusty red colour with black sleeves. I also got some long johns, black all over. At just £6.99 these are a steal and I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any Merino wool garments anywhere near this price.
Just in case you’re not familiar with Merino wool, it is lovely. It seems to have a knack of controlling your body temperature very well and at either end of the scale. Another advantage is impressive odour control.
Multi Sports neck warmer / buff
At £6.99 you can’t go wrong with this versatile bit of kit. The neck warmer is really a circular scarf which can be used as a balaclava, a headband, a mask or as a scarf. No doubt it can be used for all kinds of imaginative types of clothing….
So once again Aldi have dome themselves proud with a good range of winter cycling clothes. This review only covers a bit of the clothing range (they do gloves, shoe covers, jackets and so on). There are a number of other cycling accessories as well – oils, cleaning fluids, a workshop stand, and indoor trainer and most interesting of all – a Garmin! The actual Garmin Edge 810 (£179.99) is an advanced touchscreen cycling GPS, suitable for use both on and off the road and features a whole host of features designed for a keen cyclist. Compatible with NT+™ heart rate, speed/cadence and power sensors, this multifunction device is a virtual training partner, interactive map, weather forecast and more, all in one neat, lightweight package.
I have blogged before about Aldi. There are many cyclists whizzing around on nice bikes costing north of £2,000 and yet the often go for Aldi cycle clothing: what does this say about their range?
Good value for the Aldi winter cycling 2016 range. Well done Aldi!
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