It’s no secret that the core customers for yoga/casual apparel giant Lululemon are women. Even within cycling, the company’s most recent association was as title sponsor of a top women's pro cycling team.

So it’s a little surprising that the first cycling-specific clothing the company is releasing isn’t for women. Instead, Lululemon’s new Sea to Sky collection is for guys and, according to the company’s PR agency, there are no immediate plans to produce a women’s version.

Which is too bad, because it’s a stylish kit that we think many of our female co-workers, friends, and family might like.

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The Sea to Sky line is just four pieces right now: shorts ($128) or bib shorts ($158), a jersey ($128) and a vest ($138). It’s the first kit that Lululemon has designed and made in-house; previous cycling gear was an outsourced collaboration. The line shows off the company’s strengths and, in one instance, one of its weaknesses.

Fit and fashion are top-notch, as you’d expect for a company that made its name on turning form-fitting workout clothes into an everyday outfit. The jersey is a smart, stylish number with some excellent technical touches: flat-stitched seams, luxurious-feeling fabric, a trim silhouette, and thoughtfully placed ventilation panels. It’s comfortable, wicks well and looks good on or off the bike, with subtle, understated logos.

The three rear pockets are roomy and carry well even when the jersey is fully unzipped, and subtle reflective details offer a bit of tech-forward fashion in daytime but light up at dawn or dusk when hit by headlights. At $128, it’s competitively priced compared to jerseys from Castelli, Giordana, and other similar brands. We would welcome lighter-colored fabrics for hot weather; right now it comes in black and a deep purple color called Black Cherry, which will both hold heat in summer.

The vest has a similar sharp look to it and even more reflective highlights—specifically the banding around the arm holes. There are two rear pockets, split by a stretchy center panel that helps the vest fit more comfortably around whatever you have in your jersey pockets.

We were a bit puzzled by the use of a waterproof fabric. Lululemon bills it as water-resistant, but it’s clearly a waterproof-breathable membrane. That’s a bit strange in a vest because, well, it’s a vest, not a jacket, so you’re going to get wet in the rain anyway. And the membrane adds cost and some bulk, although it still packs down tight enough to fit in a jersey pocket.

The shorts are frustrating—they’re so close to great. We loved the thicker fabric and its supportive compression. Fit is excellent (the legs are cut long compared to Castelli or Assos, so if you like to wear your shorts with the gripper closer to the knee you’ll like these). The bib suspenders don’t have a ton of give, but they’re not restrictive, and the short fabric wicks well. Reflective highlights on the sides are, as with the jersey and vest, subtle design flourishes by day that flash brilliantly under artificial light at night.

Despite an awkwardly-placed chamois, Lululemon's new men's cycling kit is not bad, for a first try. Lululemon

The lone failure spot, though, is a vital one. The chamois pad is obviously high-quality, with a multi-density, multi-thickness foam with some nice anatomic touches. But both testers felt the chamois pad was sewn a bit too far back in the short.

For riders with an upright position, it may work great, but our testers, who ride in a fairly normal and normal-to-aggressive position, found that the thickest part of the pad didn’t quite line up with our sit bones on the saddle.

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As well, it’s a narrow pad—11.5 centimeters wide at its narrowest part, which sits under your perineum and has the important job of isolating you from possible chafing when you’re pedaling (so, like, all the time). That crucial measurement is at least 1cm narrower than the chamois on any shorts in our gear closet. Compared to some of our favorite—albeit pricier—shorts from Castelli, Giordana, Rapha, Assos, and Q36.5, it’s anywhere from 4 to 7cm narrower.

That meant the sides of the chamois pad don’t extend past the edges of the saddle, which can cause chafing. In our limited initial testing, we didn’t experience big issues on rides up to a couple of hours, but the sensation was noticeable.

Chamois pads are highly subjective—what one person likes, another one won’t. And they’re also the hardest thing to get right in technical cycling apparel. It’s not a huge surprise that Lululemon didn’t hit a home run in its first try. We expect they’ll improve, but for now, it’s something to think about if you find most of the shorts in your cycling kit have wider pads.

Overall, we’re fans of the new Sea to Sky kit. It’s stylish and reasonably priced against similar items from other companies. And it’s a welcome push outside of generalist workout clothing that mainstream apparel companies sometimes try to portray as ideal for cycling; it’s an attempt to meet us on our terms as enthusiast cyclists. We love that. And with a couple of tweaks to the chamois pad, we’ll love all of it.

Joe Lindsey Joe Lindsey is a longtime freelance journalist who writes about sports and outdoors, health and fitness, and science and tech, especially where the three elements in that Venn diagram overlap.

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