The same climb, every Saturday

Every Saturday the alarm goes off early. Not heroically early — nobody sane sets an alarm for sunrise on a Saturday — but early enough to be clipped in, coffee already inside you and a bar in the back pocket, before the road starts to warm up.

For years it was the same group and the same climb. The same regroup point at the bottom. The same bend where someone always attacks too early. The same long drag where the chat dies and all you can hear is chains, tyres and somebody pretending not to breathe hard.

You would think it gets boring. It never does. A mountain is never the same climb twice: one week the shaded hairpins are damp and cold, the next the tarmac smells of hot liquorice and the sun bounces off the rock.

The argument at the top

Every climb ends in the same place, and for a long time every conversation up there ended in the same argument.

Someone’s jersey had torn at the pocket. Someone else’s had faded into a colour that no longer had a name. Someone had finally bought the expensive one, the one with the famous logo — and it flapped like a sail on the descent. And someone always said it out loud: why is it so hard to find kit that looks good and actually survives the season?

The choice was always the same. Anonymous technical gear that works but says nothing. Or beautiful gear that looks perfect on a hanger and gives up by July. We didn’t want either.

“If nobody makes it, we’ll make it ourselves.” It was said as a joke. Nobody laughed on the way down.

The best design brief there is

A group ride is the most honest design brief in the world. You see how a jersey behaves after three hours, not three minutes. You see which pockets sag with a phone and two gels, which sleeves creep up, which colours still look alive in a photo at the top of a pass when everyone is sweaty and grinning.

Everything we learned on those Saturdays went into the first collection. Stretch fabric that stays where it should. Flat seams you forget about. Colours you can spot from the back of the group. No detail made the cut unless it had been over a mountain pass first.

Still the same climb

We still meet on Saturdays. The jerseys are ours now. Someone still attacks too early on the bend.

The argument at the top has changed, though. Now it’s about which edition looks better: Grafito, Ráfaga or Cuarzo.

Nobody has won that one yet.