Retro Marco Pantani 'Faux-Denim' Kit

Tour de France followers are transfixed this week on Dutch rider Johnny Hoogerland, who was hit by a car and flung into a barbed-wire fence. (The photo of his ripped shorts and lacerated leg/buttock is horrifying cyclists around the web.) But what if Hoogerland had been wearing jeans instead of thin biking shorts? This week, Nalini released a retro kit modeled after the custom getup worn by rider Marco Pantani and as seen in the TDF in the ’90s.

OK, so the bibs are not really made of denim. But the Lycra kit — called the Marco Pantani Denim Carrera Kit — have the same look as the ones worn by the late, great cycling champ. Pantani was sponsored by Carrera, a popular and fashionable jean maker at the time. For outright visibility of the sponsor, his kit was made to look like denim.

Nalini calls it “one of the more memorable pro team kits of the era,” and the company has info on the special Marco Pantani edition here. According to a Nalini rep, the bibshorts are printed with a denim pattern that is applied via a dye-sublimation process (like most all graphics and colors are) and that the possibilities are endless for prints. Think corduroy, hound’s-tooth, or tweed even. . . .

—Stephen Regenold