Endura Loop Bib Shorts tested: Long-haul cycling comfort sorted

There’s nothing worse than a sore bum after a long bike ride. Could the Endura Loop Bib Shorts be the ideal solution? I’ve been testing a pair for the last few weeks to find out.

First off, if you’re not a wannabe Tom Pidcock, you might be wondering what bib shorts are. Or who Tom Pidcock is. We’ll leave Google to answer the latter if necessary, but as far as the former goes, bibs are little more than padded cycling shorts with shoulder straps to keep them in place no matter how energetic the riding.

They’re generally not cheap, which is why we’d consider the £75 charged for the Endura Loop bibs decent value. A quick search also shows that various places are also selling them for a fair bit under RRP, so make sure you shop around.

Scotland-based Endura is a very well-known and generally well-regarded cycle clothing brand, and its Loop sub-brand is described as “Comfortable, durable, and made for whatever (and wherever) you’re riding. No BS, just the good stuff” in the marketing spiel. It’s supposed to be a little more casual, but if you’re a serious rider, we reckon the stuff we’ve tried from the range will still work nicely.

The shoulder straps sit nicely and are placed wide enough to avoid nipple chafing (you really don’t want that) for most body shapes and sizes. I tested a size medium, which fitted my tall and relatively lanky frame well, with the ‘400 Series multi-density gel pad’ keeping everything down below nicely protected. A total of seven sizes are available from XS to 3XL. The leg length is decent, coming down closer to my knee than the other set of bibs I generally wear, which I’ve always found come up a bit far on my thighs.

The longest I had the bibs on for was around five hours, and I never once had any comfort issues. Also, the pad isn’t so thick that things get a bit too sweaty. Endura boasts that the bibs give “rapid wicking fabric for fast drying performance,” which does seem to be the case.

It’s clearly a quality item, and after a few washes, I haven’t noticed any premature signs of wear. It also looks great in Barra Blue, although if you’re worried about colour clashes with other gear, you can have them in black.

One downside of bib shorts is the potential difficulty you might experience if nature calls partway through a ride. Thankfully, the Loop bibs sit just about low enough to make things easy should the need arise. That’s not a given with bib shorts, and neither is a pair of pockets. It’s a really handy feature to have if you don’t want your phone flapping around on the back pocket of your jersey. They’re big enough to fit a decent-sized smartphone in, as well.

So far, I’m really happy with the Endura Loop bibs. You can consider them highly recommended, especially if you can snag one of the deals we noticed at the time of writing.