Casual Cycle
A UK based place for bicycle commuters, adventures, fixers of eBay treasures and everything else that the UCI hates. Give it to us raw and wriggly, you can keep nasty ol strava's
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
You don't have to be in the UK, it's just where the instance lives and the mod is a brit.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here. No porn. No Ads / Spamming. No one cares about your onlyfans
-
Respect privacy: Don't share your or anyone else's personal information, such as home addresses, phone numbers, or social security numbers. This is a matter of safety and privacy.
-
Engage don't rage share opinions discuss disagreements but remain respectful and progressive when doing so. Don't just hit down or post a low effort response.
-
Have fun, hopefully this community will grow to represent the more chill alt side of cycling.
Feddit.UK rules:
- No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia
- No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies
- No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users
- Do not share intentionally false or misleading information
- Do not spam or abuse network features.
Until posts start coming organically I'll keep posting things, usually going to be rando photos,youtube vids and such. So please feel free to post.
view the rest of the comments
I've always been curious, but the premium held me back. What's the difference between regular wool and merino? Do you think regular wool base layers wouldn't have kept up?
The primary difference is that Merino wool comes from Merino sheep. As for what makes the wool special, it appears to be the size of the fiber itself. The USDA has specifications for wool grades based on the size of the fiber, and Merino wool fibers range in size from <18 microns to 26 microns; for reference, a human hair ranges in size from about 50 - 100 microns. That puts all of Merino wool at grade 62 or better. Because it's a finer fiber, each individual strand is more flexible, which makes it less scratchy. The flip side of that is that a lighter fiber means that it's also less strong, so Merino isn't well suited to outerwear that's going to be used in more austere environments. Wool in general doesn't have very good abrasion resistance, and a very light fiber will be much less so.
Any wool base layer made from sheep's wool should keep up just fine, but a coarser wool is going to feel less comfortable against your skin. I have an old Army milsurp sweater, and the wool is very coarse; most people would not find it comfortable on their skin.
🙇♂️
IIRC the key difference is that it's smoother/softer and doesn't feel itchy. I only own merino wool stuff though and can't remember last time I wore regular wool, so not sure of other differences.
Bought a bunch of long sleeve shirts from Costco (like 15ish?) when they were cheap, as low as $6 per shirt as well as their Kirkland socks (for women, men's are garbage) so some good deals can still be had there on certain products.
Only saw 50% merino wool/synthetic mix base layers though for sale there, but I know Ice breaker can occasionally have decent sales, but their prices have gone up over the years and quality down a bit since they move production out of NZ.
Edit: I think I first saw the shirts in UK, but only bought them in Canada and they're made in Canada. They've doubled in price (non sale) in the last 3-4 years, but still cheaper than anywhere else and could be used as base layer.
Thank you so much for the reply! Are you talking about something like this? Looks comfy, although pricy. Might look for sales at other merchants.
If you have an Aldi worth keeping up with the special buys they have at least one run a year.
I do have a Lidl! Thanks for the hint!