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Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey

8
£59.99

VERDICT:

8
10
One of the best cool-weather long-sleeved tops out there for the money – and good looking too
Weight: 
283g
Contact: 

At road.cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Our reviewers are experienced cyclists that we trust to be objective. While we strive to ensure that opinions expressed are backed up by facts, reviews are by their nature an informed opinion, not a definitive verdict. We don't intentionally try to break anything (except locks) but we do try to look for weak points in any design. The overall score is not just an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product compares with items of similar spec, quality, and price.

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In a world awash with hyperbolic marketing claims about what a jersey can do for your cycling ability – improve speed, moisture management, attractiveness to the opposite/same sex – the Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey stands out as the most hidden light around. It does the job, looks the part, and for 60 quid represents fabulous value.

There are very few cycling brands that can claim their products are made in Britain, and Manchester-based Lusso is one, since 1982. 

> Find your nearest dealer here

> Buy this online here

The Trofeo is its long-sleeved full-zip jersey with three deep pockets at the back and a zipped valuables pocket large enough to fit an iPhone 5 in its protective case. Result. With ever-larger phones about it amazes me brands don't actually try to reflect real-world use cases with things like, erm, phones in real-world use cases.

Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey - side pocket
Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey - back pocket

The Trofeo is available in two colours – the black tested, and green, which looks like yellow on my monitor, certainly one for the high-vis acolytes. I really, really like the styling – it looks quite the business and, to my mind, a lot more expensive than the £59.99 price tag would suggest.

Fit-wise it's snug. I'm what my wife calls 'skinny' – 6ft tall with 37in chest, 33in waist – and the medium fits like a glove as per the Lusso sizing chart (it's not me in the photos). It rates medium up another 2-3in so expect 'rather snug' if you're at the higher end of the range.

Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey - riding

Huge bonus points are awarded for the sleeves – my Ape Index of 1.04 means my arm span is 4in longer than my height, and the cuffs still reach my wrist joint and don't ride up on the bike.

For £60 you can't expect fabrication miracles, and there are no flatlocked seams, and no zip garage or headphone port in the pockets. I always wore a baselayer underneath, so I can't attest to whether the uncovered zip edge or seams would irritate after a while. With the rise of mesh layers for heat control instead of warmth maybe this is now irrelevant, and given that it's a winter jersey, maybe it's always meant to go over a base.

Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey - collar

Rounding out the tech detail, there's a reflective sew-in on the bottom of the centre pocket, and silicone gripper hem. The inside of the MT.1 fabric has a Roubaix fleece feel. It purports to be designed for 'high moisture transfer keeping you cool and saving energy to ride longer'.

Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey - back

So it's a jersey meant for cooler days, and to handle moisture. And it delivers.

On two to four-hour, 80% max heart rate efforts, the Trofeo was very comfortable – in temperatures of 7-9°C with a thin mesh baselayer underneath I didn't need to ventilate with the zip at all. Wearing a thicker 150gsm merino layer on a very windy 10°C Strava Personal Record fest working at the same effort I was warm, but again not uncomfortable by putting the zip to use on hills.

> Check out our guide to the best winter cycling jerseys here

As winter set in, slower rides at 2-7°C with the merino and a gilet meant cool arms for the first 10 miles or so, but the proof is in the finger pudding. I suffer awfully from cold hands, yet the Trufeo kept the chill at bay just enough (even with the thickest gloves in the world you can still get cold hands if your arms aren't warm enough).

All in all, the Lusso Trofeo delivers in style, and at a price half that of the competition that work no better. Testing a similar-spec jersey costing over twice as much, around the same time of year, I found myself preferring the Trofeo. A real result for a made-in-the UK product, and at a sensible price.

Verdict

One of the best cool-weather long-sleeved tops out there for the money – and good looking too

road.cc test report

Make and model: Lusso Trofeo Long Sleeved Jersey

Size tested: Medium

Tell us what the product is for, and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

It's a slim-cut, understated yet stylish jersey that's comfortable and not trying to be more than it needs to be.

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

* Full Front Zip for easy access

* Lusso SC9 Gripper around the hem

* 3 Rear pockets, plus 1 Zipped (4 in total)

* 50+ UV Ray protection

* Anatomically shaped

* Reflective element at rear

* Machine Washable

Specially designed fabric for high moisture transfer keeping you cool and saving energy to ride longer

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
7/10

It certainly held up to regular wear, but lacked features like flatlock seams that are becoming increasingly standard.

Rate the product for performance:
 
8/10

It kept me at just the right temperature with correct use of baselayers and gilets.

Rate the product for durability:
 
8/10

After a few months' use and washes it still looks like new.

Rate the product for fit:
 
9/10

Like a glove. Would be very snug at the upper end of the advertised ranges.

Rate the product for sizing:
 
7/10

Might come up a tad small, but depends on whether you like tight-tight or just snug.

Rate the product for weight:
 
7/10

Can't complain.

Rate the product for comfort:
 
9/10

Excellent. The arms and cut around the shoulders when on the bike worked really well.

Rate the product for value:
 
8/10

Very good.

How easy is the product to care for? How did it respond to being washed?

Wash it at 30. Job done.

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

Very well indeed.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

The styling. It really looks the business.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Maybe if I'm being picky, the zip pulls could be more generous.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Use this box to explain your score

For the price and overall, this is indeed a very good buy. Call it your favourite training jersey, which might just do do for Sunday best.

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 42  Height: 183cm  Weight: 72kg

I usually ride: Charge Juicer  My best bike is:

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: A few times a week  I would class myself as: Expert

I regularly do the following types of riding: club rides, general fitness riding, fixed/singlespeed, mountain biking, and Dutch bike pootling

Living in the Highlands, Mike is constantly finding innovative and usually cold/wet ways to accelerate the degradation of cycling kit. At his happiest in a warm workshop holding an anodised tool of high repute, Mike's been taking bikes apart and (mostly) putting them back together for forty years. With a day job in global IT (he's not completely sure what that means either) and having run a boutique cycle service business on the side for a decade, bikes are his escape into the practical and life-changing for his customers.

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6 comments

Avatar
antigee | 8 years ago
1 like

I'm happy with the 4 stars - makes some sense for me: the product lacks some technical features found in similar garments and this is possibly reflected in the price - fair enough, read the detail and decide if suitable for needs.

Avatar
Nick0 | 8 years ago
0 likes

So, all of these things, and made in the UK. But would you still expect this for less than £60, or would you mark it down because it's too expensive then? And MADE IN THE UK. Blimey, not asking much, are we!

Avatar
KiwiMike replied to Nick0 | 8 years ago
0 likes
Nick0 wrote:

So, all of these things, and made in the UK. But would you still expect this for less than £60, or would you mark it down because it's too expensive then? And MADE IN THE UK. Blimey, not asking much, are we!

 

I'm not quite sure you're getting the concepts of 'exceptional', let alone 'perfect'. Other review websites are available, if you feel the need to see an arbitary four or five stars against everything.

Avatar
Nick0 replied to KiwiMike | 8 years ago
0 likes
KiwiMike wrote:
Nick0 wrote:

So, all of these things, and made in the UK. But would you still expect this for less than £60, or would you mark it down because it's too expensive then? And MADE IN THE UK. Blimey, not asking much, are we!

 

I'm not quite sure you're getting the concepts of 'exceptional', let alone 'perfect'. Other review websites are available, if you feel the need to see an arbitary four or five stars against everything.

Oh dear. Sorry if I offended you Kiwimike, not my intention at all. I simply sought to ask, since there is no established weighting criteria, if you had the other features you mentioned and the price was much more, whether you'd mark it down because it was expensive.

I feel that we should be supporting small UK companies, and there are not really many at all in this day and age of mega corporations employing sweat shop labour.

I do get the concepts of exceptional, and I don't believe that there is any such thing as perfect.

I've got quite a few bits of Lusso kit (I must stress that I am a customer but not connected to them in any other way) and they are every bit as good (in many cases better) as garments that I've had from the premium companies out there, so much so that since I discovered them I haven't bought any more premium kit!

Anyway I didn't mean to rattle your cage so to speak, hope we're still comrades on wheels  

Avatar
Nick0 | 8 years ago
1 like

Glowing review, nothing negative, MADE IN THE UK, and only four stars?

Avatar
KiwiMike replied to Nick0 | 8 years ago
2 likes
Nick0 wrote:

Glowing review, nothing negative, MADE IN THE UK, and only four stars?

Hi Nick0

The Road.cc review guide says that 4 stars is 'Very Good'. 4.5 is 'Exceptional' and 5 is 'Perfect'.

 

It is indeed 'Very good'.

 

Things that would have garnered 4.5 stars:

Larger zip pulls

Flatlocked seams

Pocket headphone port

Zip garage (and possibly offset zip)

 

Things that would have got it 5 stars:

All of the above, plus costing £50 or less

 

As you can see, getting 4.5 let alone 5 stars in a Road.CC review is rather difficult - you have to fight to justify 4.5, and anything you want to rate 5 stars goes to the gates of the editors-in-chief mansion, where you have to fend off the subs waiving the Sword Of  Righteous Consumer Scepticism, dodge the Trident Of Unfair Comparison With Items Costing Three Times As Much, to then lay prostrate before the Arbiters Of All Things Starry, where 9 times out of ten they'll tell you to think again, sunshine.

 

Suffice to say, it doesn't happen much.

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