As I spent my Sunday afternoon standing on the side of the road waiting for the riders in Italy’s annual long distance cycling race the Giro d’Italia to come by clad in multicoloured lycra, I was reminded of a blog post I had written some years ago on knitted cycling clothes.

I had started this post with a magazine pull out which contained full instructions to knit your own cycling jacket. Back then in the 1950s knitted cycling kits weren’t only for amateurs, knitted woollen shirts were the staple for the cycle racer, paired with knitted woollen shorts.

In this part of Tuscany it is not uncommon to see the framed knitted shirts of a previous generation of famous cyclists adorning the walls of local restaurants. The Tuscan hills have long been an area popular with cyclists, professional and amateur, and has generated its fair share of long distance cyclists perhaps most notably Gino Bartali who competed internationally from the 1930s – 50s and was revered not just for his cycling.

From May through the summer, cycle tourists will be retracing the course of the Giro and exploring the area by bike, including along the various Strade Bianche or Eroica routes and participating in a series of local races.

With all this in mind I thought it might be time to re-visit another post that I had started which had originally been planned as a follow up to that about the magazine pull out and the growth of amateur cycling, and focused more on the attire of competitive cyclists. Never, published I’m sharing it now with a few revisions and a few lost sources that no longer seem exist 7 years (!) after I last edited this post…. However the question I was asking then still seem to me to be of potential interest:

Are woollen cycling kits simply a things of the past, or does wool have a role to play in modern high performance sporting gear?

Modern interest in, and nostalgia for, the iconic cycling jerseys of the past, have generated a series of retro reproductions using ‘modern wool technology’, that may provide a model. However, they will have to overcome some rather ingrained, if somewhat archaic assumptions.

The narrative that accompanies discussion of wool cycling clothing will perhaps be a bit tediously familiar to knitters and those who have studied the woollen swimsuit, for example,

at the dawn of cycling as a competitive sport, most cycling clothing was wool. It was scratchy, and when it got soaked it fit like a saggy sack, but was faster drying and more comfortable than cotton
(Source: kitsbow Cycling Apparel blog -no longer in business)

However, some had a more positive perspective:

At the dawn of cycling there was no better fabric than wool: it wicked away moisture from the skin and absorbed perspiration, the perfect material for hot summers and cold winters. 

(Source: www.blog.ciclismoclassico.com)

So here we see a recognition that notably was wool the best available option and that it also had important characteristics that made it suitable for the task in hand, to a point.

Stan Brittain, a pioneer of British professional cycling in the post war period who rode as a domestique for Brian Robinson in the 1958 Tour de France, was asked in an interview what the kit was like for the UCI World Road Race Championship in 1953:

Heavy. Especially in the wet. We had the woollen shorts, of course, and the top was also woollen – pockets back and front, with red, white and blue ‘V’s sewn onto the front. When this lot got wet, it weighed a ton. But that was what it was like.
(Source: Stan Brittain Interviewed www.spincyclemag.com)

From this description we can see that not only was the jersey wool, but also the shorts. More importantly however in terms of functionality, there were multiple layers of wool used to create pockets, and additional fabric sewn on. It’s not clear if the ‘V’ on the front and back were also woollen, or if these were cotton. Whichever, when thoroughly soaked these multiple layers would likely seem bulky and be heavy in comparison to more modern fabrics.

Talking of the intense heat of the South of France during the summer Tour, Brittain described the kits for this event too:

We were wearing the white wool jersey’s, with a black band across the front, that were tour issue for international teams then. All the other riders were in woollen vests, too, though.
(Source: as above)

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Despite the weight and the difficulties associated with this generation of wool jersey, it proved resilient in the peloton. Initial attempts by tailor Armando Castelli to swap wool for silk in the 1940s had limited success. Certainly silk was more lightweight and cooler, and it seems could be printed more easily. Castelli had made his reputation in cycling making clothing for the aforementioned Gino Bartali.

Gino Bartali (left) in his iconic Ursus jersey made from wool. You can see in the picture on the right the button-on name and team panel that also serves to create pockets. Next to Bartali is rival Fausto Coppi, who it is said was the driving force behind Castelli’s silk jerseys having asked for something lighter that would allow him to go faster in time trials. It seems marginal gains were also a thing back in the 1940s…

However, it seems wool stayed the course, with silk deemed too light for anything but short sprints and track races, and was not eliminated entirely until the introduction of synthetics put an end to wool’s 70 year reign.

The development of Polyester, an extruded Polythene thread that can be woven in the 194Os, and then Spandex or Lycra, extruded Polyurethane in the 1950s, proved a game changer and by the 1980s synthetics had taken over. However, the takeover was not entirely smooth.

In an interesting, if a little pro-synthetics, article for Chemical World, Hayley Bennett tells the history of the first synthetic Yellow Jersey dating back to the 1948 tour when Bartali himself was in contention. It so happens that the first ever sponsor of the then 45 year old event was, Sofil, a maker of ‘artificial yarn’ which made the leaders Yellow Jersey from synthetic ‘blends’. However, it is unclear exactly what this was. Bennett cites John McLoughlin, a textile expert at Manchester Metropolitan University, who isn’t sure; ‘I’ve never heard of a wool blend with nylon. That’s not to say there hasn’t been experimentation on that. I’m sure there has been.’

I have to say this statement might leave any sock knitter out there a little perturbed and I wondered if it referred to this particular moment in time, but a little more digging and wool nylon blend yarns were already available for sock knitting and darning by that point. So perhaps the comment is specific to the field of cycling jerseys at this time. Anyway if the synthetic wasn’t nylon, what was it? The timing and the qualities of these new and experimental synthetics, does not reveal an answer and the article is inconclusive.

What is perhaps more interesting is the response of the competitors in 1948 to the ‘synthetic’ Yellow Jersey, and that of 22 year old Louison Bobet, in just his second Tour. Leading the general classification, he refused to wear the synthetic Yellow Jersey and instead requested an old-style jersey of pure wool, which he believed to be more hygienic.  

Jacques Goddet, race organiser recalling the controversy in an interview for Cycling News in 2006 that also talks about a little of Sofil’s synthetic thread being mixed into the traditional wool, and of Bobet’s refusal :

“It produced a real drama”, Goddet recalled. “Our contract with Sofil was crumbling away. If the news had got out, the commercial effect would have been disastrous for the manufacturer.”

Luckily the refusal was not public and Sofil, worked overnight to make Bobet a 100% wool jersey before the race set out for La Rochelle in the morning. The potential for controversy was further reduced when on the way to Aix-les-Bains on stage 14, Bartali took back the lead and never relinquished it. Driven, it is argued, by political turmoil in Italy he retained the synthetic Yellow Jersey all the way to the end.

Bartali on the right and Bobet on the left in both pictures of the 1948 Tour de France, both in racing Jerseys.

In looking for a picture of Bartali in this Jersey, the gods of serendipity intervened and it seems that the Yellow Jersey (pictured below) was given by Bartali, along with two others, to the church of Santa Petronilla here in Siena as a sign of his friendship with priest Don Bruno Franci. Had I known when I was passing this morning I could have popped in to see if they are currently on display!

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The Jerseys have undergone a process of restoration but the article on their restoration unfortunately makes no reference to the jersey being made of synthetic fibres instead referring to wool, felted areas and moth damage. This, and the appearance of the fabric including the cuffs and collar does seem to suggest the fabric construction is that of a knitted garment even if the thread has some synthetic content. So unfortunately, even tracking down its restoration it’s still not clear what the synthetic component of this Yellow Jersey is.

In the end however, synthetics proved to be light and aerodynamic, could wick moisture like wool and take print dyes like silk. This latter consideration became increasingly important as the field of sports advertising and sponsorship developed. By the 1980s Cycling News notes that screen-printed artificial fibre jerseys had replaced ‘the ruinously expensive embroidering of logos’ but there was, it seems, another cost:

they were mobile saunas. Turn up pictures of the time and you’ll see riders with their jerseys fully unzipped on the hottest stages, baring their pale chests to the burn of the southern sun. It wasn’t macho fashion: it was survival.

By the 1990s polyester, having banished wool and silk, became king and has since consolidated its position in high tech sportswear, or has it?

Maybe things are beginning to turn, especially in mass participation events among cycle enthusiasts such as the Eroica noted above. The combination of sustainability and concern for the future, alongside a recognition of the past may point in another direction.

Modern merino wool replicas of iconic jerseys are once again being manufactured and worn by cyclists who honour the tradition and heritage of their sport. They are promoted as lightweight, comfortable and suitable for cycle tours.

A more modern asthetic can be seen in De Marchi’s blend wool and synthetic in Sportwool garments which blend wool and synthetics for both jerseys and wool shorts again recognising the thermal regulation, sweat management, comfort, durability and odour resistance that wool can offer.

Silk too is being revisited with De Marchi manufacturing silk base layers that are light, comfortable and offer wind resistance, and they are working with manufacturers in Como, Italy, using modern technology to develop heavier weight silk fabrics with sufficient compression and tenacity for cycling shorts.

I think my pro-wool may be evident in this post (!) and I really hope, be it on grounds of sustainability, nostalgia or simple practicality that we can now ditch the lycra and once again take to our bicycles in natural fibres.

Until next time enjoy your knitting and, if you can watch any of the Giro, you’ll see some lovely Italian countryside and historic towns and cities, it’s really great to knit to!

Speak soon , take care

Tess xxx