I love Rapha.
Rapha is a sportswear and lifestyle brand focused on road cycling, clothing and accessories.
I mean I love anything pink and as Rapha tends to have pink on a lot of their products I tend to naturally gravitate toward it all.
I have a couple of their pink bottles that match my bike perfectly (that is when my husband is not ‘borrowing’ them).
My husband and I had tickets to go to the opening of their new store in Spitalfields market last night and so after work we headed down there.
I could spend a fortune! I wanted shoe covers, bottles, shoes, jerseys, gillets, gloves, hats, jackets – basically I wanted it all.
The store is in an old bank and in the basement the vault is still downstairs and has been used in a genius way. The vault is now the Rapha Vault.
In the Rapha Vault you can wear the Rapha clothing, recreating your riding position on a stationary bike inside a climate-controlled chamber enabling you to find the perfect fit for your riding and racing apparel.
We were speaking with a very nice young man who explained to us how it worked. The temperature in the vault can be adjusted between 0 and 30 degrees. Wind speed can reach up to 30 mph (which is nice – or something like that)! A really clever idea if you want to test out the clothing before you buy it.
Any cyclist knows the kit can be expensive and if you are taking part in an event, say overseas, this could be really useful. My husband is doing the Gran Fondo New York next May and discussion soon turned to that as it became clear a turn in the chamber could help him pick what could be ideal to wear there.
Anyway I have a lengthy Christmas list to write full of lots of pink Rapha items!
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