Castelli Blog

It’s a whole new bike race after Wednesday’s long, wet race stage of the Giro d’Italia. The “bigs” became the ex-bigs, as 56 riders split away from the field and rode off into the distance. A combination of tired legs, hard terrain, rain, cold, and tactical errors ended the hopes of riders like Basso, Evans, and Vinokourov. They now sit 10 minutes or more behind the new race leader, Richie Porte of Saxo Bank, who is racing his first grand tour.

This is why the Giro is so much better to watch than any other race. No other race has the weather swings the Giro has. Sure, the Tour and Vuelta can have really bad weather as well, but the Giro can go from snow to rain to a hot day with temperatures over 30° Celsius within the same week.

At Castelli, we put all the effort into making the most performance-enhancing clothing, from weather protection to comfort and speed, to give our riders an innovative edge in their way for victory. Each and every day, we set out to create tomorrow’s revolutionary futuristic clothing together with our partners. For example, in cooperation with W.L. Gore, we have come up with the lightest waterproof Gore-Tex® cycling jacket ever, exclusively by Castelli.

Let’s have a look at the Pocket Liner Gore-Tex® jacket. You might think that being the lightestweight Gore-Tex® cycling jacket ever—weighing in at just 170 grams—would be big news. But it’s not. Let’s start with waterproofness. Gore-Tex® is “guaranteed to keep you dry” and this jacket is 100% waterproof, including full seam sealing and waterproof zippers.

The 170-gram weight doesn’t mean compromising breathability, as the three-layer Pro Shell fabric is among the most breathable ever. The Gore-Tex® stretch “plissé” folded panels will help make this jacket fit closer to the body and reduce flapping in the wind.

The front opening has five velcro patches so that the rider quickly can close the jacket as coming over the top of the pass in the Dolomites, and then fix the zipper to really close it up later.

To ensure the performance of the Pocket Liner jacket, Castelli has performed a variety of tests in the laboratory at W.L. Gore, and in the field with the Cervélo TestTeam. Never before has there been so much effort put into making a real cycling performance rain jacket.  The Pocket Liner Gore-Tex® jacket will be available in stores in the near future.

Cervélo TestTeam testing Castelli’s new Aero Rain jacket and Pocket Liner Gore-Tex jacket in Bengium.

Download press-release here >>