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review

Prendas Ciclismo Cotton Cap

8
£7.50

VERDICT:

8
10
A good price, and just gets it right
Weight: 
30g
Contact: 
www.prendas.co.uk

At road.cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Our reviewers are experienced cyclists that we trust to be objective. While we strive to ensure that opinions expressed are backed up by facts, reviews are by their nature an informed opinion, not a definitive verdict. We don't intentionally try to break anything (except locks) but we do try to look for weak points in any design. The overall score is not just an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product compares with items of similar spec, quality, and price.

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The Prendas Ciclismo Cotton Cap does everything you'd like your cycling cap to do. After a tough tour of duty; rain, sun, sweat, more rain, mud, wind and rain it's still the first one off the hook, peeking into Favourite Cap territory.

Prendas Ciclismo have been purveyors of cycle clothing for over 15 years, and their website is a place to happily waste a whole afternoon pondering saddle schmutter. In the millinery section of their peloton haberdashery is a whole range of cotton caps displaying current and retro trade team designs and their own less partisan designs, some of which we have here.

For something so simple it can be remarkably simple to get a cotton cap wrong. Some shrink alarmingly with each wash so they give you a headache, and leave the tell-tale Red Ring Of Pain on your forehead when you peel them off, sometimes the peaks are too big or crease, sometimes the stitching gives way, sometimes they just don't feel happy on the head, sometimes we think about these things too much.

But for the connoisseur of the casquette it's easy to have a favourite cap that's somehow 'just right' with a level of importance way beyond its proletarian status, the Lucky Cap. Or just the one that matches top, matches shorts, matches socks, matches bike, and gets pulled on or shoved under a helmet over all the others for each and every ride.

The Prendas Ciclismo Cotton Caps get it right. Fit is just so, being neither too tight nor too baggy, and they don't shrink over time to become uncomfortable. The peak hasn't gone soggy with age and the cap has done its job of keeping sweat and sun out of eyes, or more usefully, the rain.

The only downside is that the printing on the sides doesn't take long to wear thin, but that just makes the caps look like they're done some Epic™ riding and been worn out by sun, rain, wind and sweat.

Verdict

A good price, and just gets it right.

road.cc test report

Make and model: Prendas Ciclismo Cotton Cap

Size tested: x

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

All of the Prendas cotton caps are made in Italy and are a "one size fits all". Prendas say that in reality, they fit the vast majority of people well but those above a 61cm will struggle. I haven't measured my head but it's usually about a large medium in helmet sizes and a Prendas cap fits comfortably snug.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Cotton cap, made in Italy, one size fits all.

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
9/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
9/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
9/10
Rate the product for weight, if applicable:
 
8/10
Rate the product for comfort, if applicable:
 
9/10
Rate the product for value:
 
9/10

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

It performed the hard work that a cycling cap has to do without complaint or weakness.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

The fit, the selection of designs to match bike/jersey/socks.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Nothing.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes.

Would you consider buying the product? Yes.

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes.

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 42  Height: 180cm  Weight: 73kg

I usually ride: It varies as to the season.  My best bike is: The one I\'m on at the time

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Most days  I would class myself as: Experienced

I regularly do the following types of riding: road racing, cyclo cross, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mtb, Fun

 

Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.

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1 comments

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FMOAB | 12 years ago
0 likes

Bought their Wiggo Mod tribute cap for my son recently and appear to have "accidentally"requested two  44 . Great quality and value.

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