What a weird implication that you need to be the best to use good gear.
The pro-style clothing isn't posing or brand snobbery. Jeans are way too hot, cotton clothes get uncomfortably sticky from sweat way too fast and let cold wind go through them. Proper bike clothes allow me to feel comfortable for a long time and won't get me sick.
As for a good bike, it's just a better experience. I've owned a bunch of different bikes, starting with a old soviet fixed-gear Školnik, and ending with my current Trek road bike with fancy gear. Everything about riding the Trek is better than any of my older bikes. The gears change in a smoother fashion, I can roll on without cycling for much longer, and the effort-to-speed ratio is much better, allowing me to reach way higher speeds than ever before.
Sure, but I see guys riding to work in "pro style clothing" with Rabobank and RadioShack logos all over them. My cynicism makes it hard for me to come up with justifications for that which are not super easy to make fun of...
I get the "owning nice toys" thing - I even get the guys who are 20kg overweight spending $5k+ to get a bike that's 2kg lighter than a bike that costs 20% of that. To me though, it starts seeming weird when they do that while dressed up in sponsor logos for companies that sometimes don't even exist in this country...
(And it's not just lycra wearing mamils either, I don't get the motorcycle riders who paint Repsol livery on their Honda or Aruba or Xerox logos on their Ducati...)
Ah, you're talking about sponsor logos. I didn't get that at first. The only thing I know about RadioShack is that it's a store chain. I assumed they sell some rebranded bike clothes. Having sponsor logos on you that weren't put there by the clothing store seems indeed a bit quirky. I haven't seen that myself.
Does your cynicism carry over into teamwear for all sports? Baseball hats? Logowear in general? None of these people are pretending they are linebackers and point guards.
One thing you may not know is that logowear is like 90% of available men's cycling gear. There's an element of market failure.
Yeah, it does - and hypocritically so. I'm currently wearing a tshirt with a Kees Van Der Westen Speedster logo on it (an espresso machine I covet badly, but am not prepared to spend $10k+ to own). I own and wear various motorcycle branded tshirts and coffee brand tshirts, as well as many many band and musician merch tshirts. So I;m just as guilty of "making a staement" with what I choose to wear. But, of course, _my_ choices are all rational and understandable. Those _other_ guys who dress up like Lance Armstrong while riding to work are _clearly_ worthy of my derision, right? ;-)
The pro-style clothing isn't posing or brand snobbery. Jeans are way too hot, cotton clothes get uncomfortably sticky from sweat way too fast and let cold wind go through them. Proper bike clothes allow me to feel comfortable for a long time and won't get me sick.
As for a good bike, it's just a better experience. I've owned a bunch of different bikes, starting with a old soviet fixed-gear Školnik, and ending with my current Trek road bike with fancy gear. Everything about riding the Trek is better than any of my older bikes. The gears change in a smoother fashion, I can roll on without cycling for much longer, and the effort-to-speed ratio is much better, allowing me to reach way higher speeds than ever before.