Want It Wednesdays: Rapha Oversocks

Well, it's still "winter", even if the weather outside doesn't indicate such, so there's still not a lot to report riding-wise. I hit a bit of a hiccup this month when the student activities information system that I've been working on developing for the past couple of years finally went live at the beginning of the month, but not before churning me into a stressy tailspin during the weeks immediately before and after the release. Things have calmed down now, and while my big winter base-training block didn't come off as perfectly as I'd hoped, I still got some good work in. Now I'm a mere 2.5 weeks away from my first race of the season, the Sub-9 Death March. From my first couple of attempts at pre-riding the course, I know it's going to be a long, hard day, but I think Val and I will still fair pretty well amongst the women's teams.

So with my last month of bike-related stuff condensed into a single paragraph, I now present you with my latest Want It Wednesday object of desire, Rapha Oversocks. Cyclocrossers know this brand as the title sponsor for newly-crowned U.S. Champion Jeremy Powers' team, and the discipline's more hip aspirational luxury brand (leave the Assos and their terrible women's clothing designs to the MAMIL's). I'm probably just caught up in the marketing ploy like everyone else, but I've bought into the hype about the quality and design, and the soft, understated (often pink-trimmed) colorways do appeal to me. I both love and hate that they've pulled pink further into the CX mainstream; the stuff is sooo cute, but I resent JPow making it cool for dudes to rock pink hoods.

Anyway,I do occasionally find myself trolling their site to see if they've release the *PERFECT* women's bib shorts yet. No luck so far, but they haven't released any bad ones, either, so I'm holding out hope. Their women's 3/4 bib knickers look nice, but I'm not that big on fleece knickers. In my opinion, if it's cold enough for fleece, it's cold enough to cover your shins. So once the women's page is perused, I move on to the pink-trimmed accessories section. Since my all-pink Defeet Slipstream oversocks are getting pretty worn, I find myself eyeing these beauties, which are twice the retail price, but still relatively affordable for Rapha:

The Slipstream booties have served me well for three(?) seasons now, but I've always thought they were a little too short. They don't even come up to the bottom of my leg-warmers. I like the height of the Rapha oversocks, and the fact that they are mostly black with a just a little bit of pink flair, which is much more appropriate for an item of clothing that will see most of its use on cool, usually wet spring days, where the likelihood of road spray is high.