I've been doing a lot of Winter riding the last few weeks, about 300 miles in the last 2 weeks, and have had a chance to try out my new Castelli LW 2 bib tights, AND, ride my old PI Barrier bib tights for comparison. When sizing, Italian Rules apply, go UP one size. My PI is a large, so my Castelli are XL - and still nice and tight.
I wore the Castelli on a day that started out @ 9:00AM around 60F, with lots of sunshine, and after an hour clouded up with the wind picking up to a solid 10-12mph. I was getting pretty warm riding on the sunny side of the Mojave Bike Trail, where the Garmin reported 67F, and the long knee-socks and lightweight Polartech (Garneau - no longer made) leg warmers under the LW2s were really warm on my calf, and I was seriously thinking of stopping and stripping off the leg warmers - a really great option with these LW tights. Then the sun went behind a wall of clouds coming over the mountains that separate us from LA.
The temps dropped to 59F within minutes, and then 57F and eventually 54F and no sun at all. When you ride you perform a balancing act between generating heat and shedding heat, and you seldom nail it perfectly without working up a sweat on hills or headwinds, and chilling down with a tailwind, downhill, or just leaving your zipper down for too long. Bottom line, sooner or later you're going to end up riding in wet cloths, and then even a slight chill becomes a problem.
IF the sun is out you can usually find a warm place out of the wind to peel off your jacket, balaclava, gloves and helmet and let all that and your jersey and tights dry out. The back of the neck on the jersey and balaclava are usually the most problematic for me, but in a warm, sunny spot you have time to warm up and dry out.
Unfortunately, no such luck on this day, and the only place out of the wind was inside the unheated public bathroom at SVL. This means stop time has to be limited to a few minutes, and no drying off is possible. After a few minutes you lose so much heat your restarts are very cold as your core struggles to generate enough heat to get back into equilibrium.
All in all then, a very challenging day, and yet, I was amazed at how comfortable I was, riding on flat ground somewhat protected from the wind, I tried to keep my HR constant and adjusted my jacket zipper to regulate any excess heat. If the sun had come out, as was forecast, I could have peeled the leg warmers off and stowed them, so a very flexible system.
A couple of days ago it was forecast to be cold, windy and go from partly cloudy to near complete cloud cover, AND be 5-7 degrees colder throughout, so I decided to wear my old PI bib tights. 1st, they were quite loose, which should have been a tell, but they also turned out not to be as warm as I remembered, and the chamois felt paper thin at the end. They'd be great on really cold days with heavy leg warmers and knee socks, but they already weigh 2-3X as much as the Castelli, so that's not very appealing. I'd rather wear the heavy leg warmers under the Castelli. The PI are just not as warm as I remembered them being. They're 10yrs old though, so maybe that elastic is just letting go a bit.
On my next outing, the air was 50-61F, and somewhat cold at the start, but the sun kept burning through the cloud-cover all day, until it there were lots of nice places to stop and warm up. The Castelli did a good job keeping my glutes warm, the compression level was awesome, they're light enough to not bother your cadence much, and the chamois is awesome for a tight. I also had the option to peel off the lightweight leg warmers underneath all day. I did take the sleeves off my PI convertible jacket, but put them on when the sun started getting low to stay warm. What a huge difference! Options in winter are wonderful!
My only complaint about the Castelli is the Lycra below the knees (remember, this is Castelli's response to knicker sales declining, so a tight that's close to a knicker) was easily scratched by the side of my pedal when pushing off and missing the clip-in a bit. SMH
Castelli makes great stuff that just doesn't hold up well in my experience. We'll see about these bib tights, but it is disappointing they can't seem to bring themselves to add a little robustness in a few areas and have a stellar product through and through. Maybe instead of using Lycra printed with their name in giant 4" letters they could just use something much tougher in Screaming Yellow, or Castelli Red for that matter, and print their scorpion label on the legs.
So with that caveat, I highly recommend these bib tights.
PS: Shimano bought Pearl Izumi 2-3 yrs ago, and the quality of PI is spotty now, though they seem to have pretty much worked though their warehouses full of old gear. It's a frustrating time to be searching for a new label. Their PRO bib shorts are awesome. I bought 2 pair, but so far Shimano hasn't impressed me with its take-over management, and I hate getting old crap sold as new. PI has dated their mfg season for as long as I can remember, so it's just obvious that it's old inventory.
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