The Future of Cycling Clothing: Beyond Waterproofing and PFAS
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Speaking to leaders from across a wide range of brands, I explored everything from waterproofing, to breathability, chamois pads, 3D printing, carbon fibre, graphene, recycled fabrics and coming technologies. This is the bleeding edge of the present, and the future of cycling clothing.
This feature has been one of the most interesting deep-dives I’ve done. When I started,I knew little about the cycling clothing I wear,or the space-age textile technology behind keeping me warm,cool,dry,comfortable,and aerodynamic. Together, some of the fabrics must be wind and waterproof from one side, but permeable to both from the other side. All this whilst the chemical technology has taken a half-step backwards, with the abolition of PFAS chemicals.
An exhaustive amount has been written on PFAS chemicals, and this piece isn’t exclusively about them, but it has been a (hopefully only) once in a lifetime shift in the landscape of sportswear production, so we shouldn’t pass by without taking stock. Here’s a refresher to bring you up to speed.
PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Alkyl Substances) are a group of highly fluorinated chemicals, and its fluorine’s incredibly strong bond with carbon that’s both its power and its problem: It repels water, fat, oils and dirt very effectively, but breaking that bond is tricky, so the nickname ‘forever chemicals.’ Great if you want the waterproofing on your jacket to last the lifetime of the jacket, awful after that, as the nasty chemicals accumulate in the biosphere. Regrettably, and to embrace a pun, in terms of performance there’s nothing to touch PFAS chemistry.
How waterproofing works
Typical 3-layer fabrics work by sandwiching a waterproof membrane between two other materials. But if the membrane itself is waterproof, why do waterproof jackets also have a DWR coating I hear you ask. great question: It’s the working in tandem of a waterproof membrane, and a water-repellent face material/coating that makes the finished garment not just waterproof, but breathable, and therefore wearable.
Waterproofing something is easy but being waterproof without being ‘breathable’ is borderline useless if there’s a likelihood of sweating. In short, if the moist air can’t get out, you get wet anyway. Hence the pivotal job of DWR coatings is keeping the pores open, and allowing the movement of air through.Finding a PFAS-free DWR that’s as good and as durable as yesteryear’s, is proving challenging.
The zenith
Gore’s now discontinued ‘shakedry’ was perhaps the pinnacle of waterproof-breathable fabrics: incredibly light, made from ePTFE (expanded Teflon).
## Elastic interface & Rubber N’Road
Elastic Interface is a large Italian B2B company that (probably) makes the pads inside your bib shorts. It’s a specialist endeavour, and they sell “about 4 million” pads per year (to bib-making brands) says their brand manager Guido Zago. That’s a surprising amount right?
2025 Elastic Interface N3X chamois tech (credit: Elastic interface)
New(ish) to their portfolio of chamois is a 3D printed pad notably for long days in the saddle. Foam compresses, and loses its elasticity and support over time, especially as it becomes wet. Elastic Interface’s 3D printed N3X is “not foam, so it doesn’t absorb sweat” says Guido, so its performance is not changed or denigrated by sweat or water. Furthermore, the “3D printed material has no problem in terms of washing, – so it has a really long-lasting performance, durability and breathability”. More breathable than foam, indifferent to moisture, longer lasting through repeated washes, with performance unchanged by conditions or duration, this sounds like a perfect advancement.
New York-based Rubber N’Road, makes high calibre cycling gear, “for people riding 15-20 hours a week”, says co-founder Gil Lavi. They use a version of this 3D printed technology in their Control 3D bibs, (a pair of which has just arrived at road.cc, and are perhaps the most expensive pair of bibs we’ve tried).In terms of pads, he says, “for racing- there is nothing as good as foam because of its elasticity and malleability,” and they use a highly customised Elastic Interface foam pad (at great cost, all-stitched rather than glued together to improve breathability), but “foam tends to compress over time.”
2026 Roubber N’Road chamois (credit: Rubber N’Road)
So,for Endurance applications,they use Elastic Interface’s 3D printed insert. “Is it the best chamois in the world [for everything]? No, but where it’s brilliant is how comfortable it is indeed at the third, fourth, fifth, sixth hour – as there’s very little compression, and because of the breathability and lack of water retention.## The Making of Cycling Shorts: From Agile Startups to Industry Giants
Though they’re far from cheap, I think this manufacturing ‘technology/methodology’ benefit (ancillary to their green credentials) is in delivering comparatively good value. And the agility of small batch manufacture means you can “tweak and iterate” between batches, multiple times per year if needed, “meaning we can test, adapt and refine many times faster than with customary seasonal mass-production”, says Ed. The secret of KOSTÜME’s pad construction and production is one that Ed guards closely. It’s great, but it’s not made by Elastic Interface… Which brings us nicely to Assos.
Assos are the antithesis, and the differences between them and Kostume, or Rubber N’Road, show there are many ways to skin a cat, or clothe a cyclist. I asked Luca Zanasca, Assos’ senior manager of progress what it takes to design a new pair of bib shorts the assos way. Assos’ broader R&D team, numbers “about 20 people”, and comprises a core development team, pattern makers, a dedicated textiles department, and designers focused on R&D projects, and according to Luca, it would be “quite challenging” to have a new pair of shorts ready for next year.
Price is considered early to avoid wasted effort, and the focus is on the insert, which is “the most critically important touch point on the bike”.While Elastic Interface supplies the base materials,Assos engineers each insert exclusively,patenting their construction.
“Assos isn’t driven to be the first”, said Luca, it is indeed much more critically important to them to get things “perfect”. The beliefs is to work hard, innovate, and embrace making mistakes as a necessary part of the development cycle to discover the best solutions and maintain technical excellence, but there’s no rush to market for an unready product. “We need to be on the top of the industry,not only with the quality… but also with some out-of-the-box products”, he continues. Yes they’re expensive at the top end, but I love that the frontiers are being pushed, and it all trickles down.
Such as, the new Equipe RS Shell jersey, which to be frank I didn’t ‘get’ when the concept was first explained. It’s a gilet…with sleeves. It’s very lightweight.Normal uses only one. For their Mechanism bib shorts, their best-selling product for the last 10 years, consistency is key: “we’ve made small updates to it over the last 10 years but tried to keep it mostly the same”. Says Patrick, “we switched to recycled fibres 3 or 4 years ago, we updated the elastics in the legs and the straps, and we use new ways of knitting it, and slightly new compositions,” but change is subtle.
2026 pas Normal Studios jacket rear (credit: Pas Normal Studios)
going PFAS free was, as Patrick puts it, a “monumental” shift for textile technology.Linden, agreed, (though offered an impassioned counterpoint, which we’ll come to later).
Patrick highlighted the pivotal relationship between brand and supplier; “material suppliers are having to onboard entirely new supply chains, it starts with just a small amount. So, often prioritisation has a little bit more to do with being able to scale” – they can say “we’re going to get you fabric, but we’re not sure when, and pricing is a little bit uncertain”. Again, being PNS and at the top of most supplier’s call-sheets is helpful if you want early access.
Once you have the designs and cutting-edge fabrics, you need to manufacture garments at scale.Enter LTP, a Scandinavian B2B company. They specialise in the manufacture of cycling clothing, are Bluesign approved, and certified by at least 14 other trade, environmental, employment and regulatory bodies. They work with cycling brands to manufacture their designs at scale.unless you’re a fashion-house roughly the size of dior, you don’t own your own factories. So brands work with ‘factories/producers/partners’ like LTP.
2026 Pas Normal Studios jersey sleeve (credit: Pas Normal Studios)
“LTP are the craftsmen, they have expert knowledge of the machines. They know how production works best”, says Patrick, and though we have a “full design team here…we get input from them”. There’ll be a little back and forth, handing over two or three versions of the ‘prototype’ till everything’s finalised.Of course, there are NDAs in place, so sometimes LTP can only say something like “we know this technique doesn’t work”. Perhaps because they’ve tried it with one of their other partners. (They also work with MAAP, Universal Colours and Isadore for example). So brands can slipstream from LTP’s collected knowledge.
for the f
The future of Cycling Shoes & Helmets: A Glimpse into Innovation
Bont is pushing boundaries, moving from traditional lasts to digitally custom manufacturing, simplifying and reducing the cost of bespoke shoes.
Next comes the light and the stiff. Cyclefit’s Julian Wall commented that people underestimate the value of a light shoe, “you have to lift it with each pedal-stroke”. Bont’s Vaypor G shoes are 200g per shoe lighter than my long-serving Lakes they replaced, saving 400g per pair. At my cadence of 81rpm, 33cm a time (twice the distance of my crank length) makes a considerable difference, equating to just under two watts saved in pedal stroke rotations on a flat road, this number only increases with gradient.
The light and the stiff, is obviously a function and result of the Bont’s carbon fibre tubs your feet sit in, very very light without a doubt, and no-one’s ever written a review of a pair of Vaypor shoes without using the words “very stiff” almost immediately. In the future, Alex had hopes that “injection-moulded bases, with short-strand carbon fibre would allow us potentially to reach a lower price point” – though for the moment, “high quality carbon” remains the best option.
also on the horizon “knitted fabrics will become more popular without a doubt, really nice knitted materials, you can do a lot with, you can make it give in some ways, you can make it tight in other ways.” Knitted fabrics rule high-end running shoes and are clearly destined to dominate top-spec cycling shoes too. Boa’s Li2 closures are the pinnacle of present technology, and perfected both skiing and cycling comfort for me.
To represent the future of helmet design and technology, I spoke to Kask, and their R&D director, Alessandro Cernicchi. Kask are by any measure of these things, a leader at the pinnacle of design and technical implementation, and Jamie loved their Elemento; it’s stunningly light for the amount of tech they’re packing in, and unsurprisingly, it’s expensive, though commensurate for a pro-level range-topper. “We have complete control over every step of our helmet development process”,says Alessandro. “Safety is always o
## Q36.5 and the Future of Cycling Apparel: Beyond Aerodynamics
In terms of aerodynamics in race clothing, “everyone’s at roughly the same level”, says Q36.5’s lodovico Pignatti Morano, “the new battleground is thermoregulation”. It’s so central to the company, it’s named after the principal: “Q” (Quarere) meaning research in Latin, and 36.5 being the ‘ideal’ body temperature. Graphene is one constituent part of their toolkit to keep riders centred around that magic number. Their Dottore jersey that Michael loved is a graphene infused thermo-regulating marvel that elicited wows of ‘wonder’ and intrigue. He was surprised at how it kept him both warm and cool by turns.
Graphene is integrated into the yarn by mixing “graphene powder with polyester and polyamide” during spinning, rather than being “printed on the surface,” says Q36.5 CEO Luigi Bergamo. This preserves “conductivity, stretch, and wash durability, as printed graphene can break down with washing and stretching.” They even made a graphene skinsuit for the Vuelta aiming to better merge aerodynamics and heat control. Q36.5 also uses fine silver yarn, which enhances heat dissipation and offers anti-static, antimagnetic effects to “shield muscles.”
At the bleeding edge of their experimentation, Luigi mentions something that sounds straight out of science fiction. “in terms of fabric, we are working with a paraffin element, that reacts and changes in nature, to become liquid or to become solid, dependent on the temperature.” Wow. “I can say the first experiment didn’t work, but we continue to work hard with producers, because theoretically, it works.”
In terms of PFAS free, and the future for that, Luigi was a little more circumspect; the PFAS free “DWR (zero) doesn’t work as well as the old C6 (shortchain) or C8 (longchain) DWR- it works well for the first or second time” and then its performance can be diminished by aggressive detergents. Luigi says their pros are currently trialling experimental fabrics that, like Shakedry, have the membrane on the outside. But “they’re just so delicate.” What they’re finding is that new DWR treated garments need better care,’better’ less aggressive washing detergents, and to have their DWR “renewed” more frequently.
Where PFAS doors are closing, windows are being opened by innovative young brands and new philosophies.
the Truth About Waterproof Jackets: Breathability, Maintenance, and a Call to wash More Frequently enough
Recent discussions in the cycling apparel industry are challenging long-held beliefs about waterproof jacket performance. A key takeaway? The perceived loss of breathability isn’t necessarily due to declining technology, but rather a lack of proper garment care. experts are urging consumers to wash their jackets more frequently to maintain optimal performance, and are clarifying the realities of waterproof membrane breathability.
Debunking the Breathability Myth
A representative from Pas Normal Studios recently addressed a common misconception regarding waterproof breathable fabrics. The idea that a waterlogged face fabric considerably diminishes breathability is, according to them, largely a “perpetuated fallacy.” While it’s true that a saturated outer layer can impact breathability, the fundamental limitation lies within the membrane itself.
As explained, waterproof breathable membranes are exceptionally good at being waterproof, but their breathability is comparatively limited. They are more breathable than a plastic bag, but fall far short of allowing unrestricted airflow. Thus, the impact of a wet face fabric is frequently enough minimal compared to the inherent limitations of the membrane.
the Importance of Washing Your Waterproof Jacket
The conversation highlighted a crucial point: maintaining the performance of waterproof jackets requires consistent care, specifically regular washing. A widespread belief exists that washing these jackets can damage their waterproof properties.however,this is demonstrably false.
Washing removes oils, dirt, and contaminants that accumulate on the face fabric, hindering its ability to effectively allow moisture vapor to escape. A clean face fabric allows the membrane to function closer to its intended capacity. This is particularly relevant as manufacturers increasingly focus on durable water repellent (DWR) finishes, which degrade over time with contamination. Nikwax and other specialized cleaning products are designed to restore and maintain these DWR treatments.
Innovation and the Future of Waterproof Technology
Despite the emphasis on maintenance, the industry isn’t stagnant. The speaker emphasized that innovation in waterproof technology is increasing, not declining, despite environmental concerns. Manufacturers are developing new materials and construction techniques to improve both waterproofness and breathability.
this focus on innovation, coupled with a shift towards responsible consumer habits, paints a positive outlook for the future of cycling apparel.The message is clear: investing in quality garments and properly caring for them will yield the best performance and longevity.
Key Takeaways:
* Breathability is Limited: Waterproof membranes prioritize waterproofness over breathability.
* Wash Regularly: Washing removes contaminants that hinder performance.
* Don’t Fear the Wash: Washing waterproof jackets does not damage them when done correctly with appropriate cleaning products.
* Innovation continues: The industry is actively developing more advanced waterproof technologies.
the conversation surrounding waterproof jackets is evolving. By understanding the limitations of current technology and embracing proper garment care, cyclists can maximize the performance and lifespan of their apparel. And, as suggested, perhaps it’s time to consider investing in a good supply of technical wash – Nikwax might just be onto something.
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