The concluding part of a two-part article exploring in detail how a newcomer in a highly technical and competitive category made cycling's most comfortable bib shorts. (10 minute read)

JULY 24, 2025

MAKING the most comfortable bib shorts in the world

PART TWO

By Ed Bartlett

A good tech pack contains detailed technical drawings and CAD’s, exhaustive lists of measurements and size break grading, and the all-important BOM (bill of materials) which provides details of every single fabric and trim. The tech pack is essentially the virtual blueprint of your product, which allows a factory to accurately create a physical version, be it for testing, refinement or production.

With our extremely aggressive timeline for launch, coupled with product innovations like our clipless toilet break drop seat and raw cut legs, it was essential that our initial tech packs were as accurate as possible. You can fairly easily end up losing months on a launch deadline due to the fairly fixed timelines for new rounds of samples, and working with our development partner Demi ensured that not only were our tech packs as clear and accurate as possible, but we also had a hand-made sample to reference.

Factory Sourcing

It’s very easy to end up stating that every part of the product development process is the most important, because the reality is that literally any misstep can reduce a potentially 10/10 product to a 7 or 8 - or worse. But finding the right factory partner is certainly near the top of the list in being crucial, because having to re-source later can not just be very painful, depending on the stage a brand is at, it can be even more consequential.

If you've read Part One already, you’ll have noted our good fortune discovering what we (and most of our customers) consider to be the most comfortable chamois pad on the market - a crucial part of any good cycling short. But in fact, this initial tip-off also led directly to our factory partner, since the same brand who makes the pad also has decades of experience making their own bib shorts.

Our initial inquiry about securing an ongoing supply of pads led to a broader conversation with the factory owner about the long term aims for Kostüme - and especially about our unique business model - culimating in an unexpected agreement for them to make our entire short. Their proprietary knowledge of the chamois pad construction coupled with the different mindset of making their own retail products (rather than only manufacturing products for other brands, like most factories do) is undoubtedly a big part of the overall success story for our shorts, and it will hopefully be the same story when we launch our forthcoming Winter Bib Tights together in Autumn/Winter 2025.

With the advent of ChatGPT and platforms like Common Objective and Open Supply Hub it is now easier than ever before to find a reputable factory partner for apparel, but ultimately you still need to be really clear on your short, medium and long term requirements, not only for your product but also for your brand.

Testing, testing...

Every person reading this has almost inevitably experienced buying products that don’t fit, perform or last as well as promised or expected. The reality is that the culprit of this is almost always down to not enough product testing. Or, more specifically, not enough time or budget to adequately fix issues that arise during the test process.

Ultimately this is down to the failings of the traditional business model, where the combination of protracted sampling lead times, seasonal product launches and the complexities of rigidly coordinating launch timings with factory production slots, wholesale partners, marketing campaigns and more means that - in most cases - it’s less bad for a brand to release a product they know isn’t fully ready, than it is to go back and fix the problems and miss the planned launch window.

It’s another symptom of a broken model, and another area where our direct to consumer preorder batch approach is highly advantageous, as clearly shown in our consistently high product review scores despite being a comparatively small brand.

Our bib shorts are really the ultimate expression of this - a highly exacting product directly targeted at Audax, Endurance and Ultra Cyclists - a user base that puts products through the kinds of real-world testing that is impossible to replicate without actually doing it. (Incidentally our next Story post will show the kinds of wear rates some of our highest-use customers are getting from their shorts.)

And so that is precisely what we chose to do, working very closely with a small network of supported riders who are exactly the kinds of customers most likely to buy and use our products, ranging from members of Audax Club Bristol, to world record holding endurance cyclist, Alan Colville and adventurers like Rory Stuart and Jess Golding.

These are people who are not on the Kostüme payroll - they have fully bought in to what Kostüme is doing, love the products and ethos, and in most cases they are also paying customers. Most importantly they ride a very long way, in all conditions, have fun doing it, and are brilliant at finding and reporting the limits of the kit they use. In short, they are gold dust, and a vital part of the brand.

Probably the best single moment from any product test actually came from the very first full shakedown of a production-ready bib short, carried out by ACB rider Mike Warren - someone whom I have personally shared a wheel with for countless hours across many an Audax, and who boldly stepped up to the plate and offered to wear them for the notorious - for its beauty and its challenge - Bristol-Glasgow-Bristol (read more about BGB here.)

I say boldly, because the shorts arrived in the country the day before the event, meaning Mike had no time to even try them before the ride. Anyone who rides even moderately long distances will know the initial bedding in of a new pair of shorts, before risking them on a long ride. Mike took one look into my eyes, smiled, and the next day he was riding North, with 1,600km and a frankly disgusting 26,288m of vertical ahead of him.

Aside from this kind of broad use-case testing, we also go through a methodical checklist for every product, with a special focus on key product claims and features. In the case of the bib shorts, this focused on the performance of our raw cut leg hems and custom silicone gripper, the cream-free Aloe-coating on the chamois, and in particular the toilet break drop seat feature, which puts extreme stress on the straps and attachment points.

Only when every one of these has been tested to - and often past - satisfaction or destruction do we go ahead and put a line in the sand for a launch. In the case of our bib shorts, the timeline for this from concept to product ready stood in at just over 9 months of development over 3 rounds of sampling. Not bad for essentially a two-person team starting from scratch, and resulting in a category-defining product.

Launch

Of course, it’s one thing to develop an exceptional product, but another altogether to successfully launch and market one. You can (and I’d argue that we do) have the best product in the world, but if nobody finds out about it, you may as well not have bothered.

Unfortunately for us, the combination of a number of factors meant we had little to no marketing budget for launch. Firstly, we were also launching both the Kostüme brand as well as a jersey, base layer, cap, neck warmer, arm warmers and knee warmers alongside the bib shorts as part of a special artist edition launch collection, which in hindsight was way too much to bite off, and meant we were stretched in every conceivable direction. And secondly, the timing of our launch coincided with the cycling industry as a whole experiencing a massive post-covid contraction.

I knew that the bib shorts needed to be the main focus, because I know that every cyclist, no matter what or how you ride wants to use the most comfortable bib shorts they can buy. So the strategy became how to a) prove they were the most comfortable and b) get the people most likely to be early adopters finding out about them organically.

The first part of this meant trying to get the shorts reviewed by a trusted high-profile source - ideally someone who would ride them in the way that was intended. I was fortunate enough to be able to get a pair to Jo Burt, one of the best known and respected industry figures, who rides everything from Audax to Cyclocross and MTB and also writes for road.cc.

Meanwhile, I struck a deal to support my local club (Audax Club Bristol) with a one-off club kit, which led to a significant number of their membership also buying the bibs. With Audax riders (or randonneurs, as they are known) spending most weekends cycling in some cases from one end of the country to the other - along with participating in high profile events like Paris Brest Paris and London Edinburgh London - I knew it was a very valuable way to get people finding out about our products. I also wrote some targeted content, including for the official Audax UK magazine.

Things were going...ok. As a direct to consumer (DTC) brand, we didn’t have the benefits of a wholesale network pushing our product, and given the visceral reaction I knew people were having when they were able to touch, see and try the shorts, I was starting to wonder if this had been the right decision after all.

And then one day, out of the blue, we experienced a sudden glut of new sales. I couldn’t initially wrap my head around it. In my surprise I started to do some Googling. And then I found it. Our road.cc review - something I’d actually given up on even happening. I was stood in the kitchen, reading it on my phone. The incredible quotes. The perfect score. I stood there in pure shock and awe. There might have been a tear. I might very occassionally still read it in difficult moments to remind me why we are doing this.

It turned out that the protracted time for the review to be published was simply due to the reviewer wanting to be absolutely certain before giving the shorts the rare honour of a perfect 10 score.

With the gradual ongoing increase in sales, I decided to capitalise on the amazing emails we were receiving increasingly frequently from customers by setting up a Trustpilot account, so that people could share their experience. Now we had a clear feedback loop, with more riders on the road leading to more word of mouth, all backed up with independent reviews from both press and customers. And the cherry on the cake was winning the overall Editor’s Choice Award in road.cc that year.

Batch to the Future

Fast forward to today, and thanks to this powerful combo we’ve been able to grow the brand 200% in the past year direct to customers in 31 countries without a single paid ad. But best of all, our preorder batch approach has ensured we have done this with zero overstock, zero discounting, and practically zero returns - things that are genuinely unprecedented not only in the cycling industry but also in the broader fashion industry.

Our small batch model ensures that we keep the visual styles fresh, creates pent up demand for each new drop, and ensures our quality levels are exceptional. You can read more about the broader benefits of the preorder model here.

We’ve also now successfully introduced a Cargo Bib Short, which subsequently won the Editor’s Choice Award in Cyclist. And we are on track to launch our first winter bib tight - using a similarly incredible weather resistant recycled soft-shell fabric - in Autumn/Winter 2025.

Can we repeat the breakout success of our bib shorts with the Winter Bib Tights? Sign up to our mailing list here to find out.