Pedaled Practicality

When it comes to clothing, many of us tend to be creatures of habit. Especially if we are of the male persuasion. I remember Tim Parr of Swobo rolling his eyes when I told him I had just purchased three pairs of almost identical Carhartt doublefront work pants. “You are such a dude,” he said. “Find a thing you like, then stock up on it and never change.” Fair. Guilty as charged. Nobody has ever called me a clothes horse. I am similarly averse to “new” and “different” when it comes to my mountain bike attire. I have a several year backstock of Specialized SWAT bibs, some ratty old merino wool base layers, and a rotation of snap button Wrangler long sleeve cotton shirts. Pants confound me. I finally wore out the Specialized Atlas shorts that I had been wearing, and am still arguing the point with their Yeti and Leatt successors. Long pants? I’ve been struggling ever since my beloved Specialized Fjallraven pants disappeared during the great truck heist of 2023. So, mid-struggle between brands, I put my hand up earlier this year to try out some new goods from Pedaled. Or, as the logo says, PEdALED.

The named “Pedaled” may not immediately jump out from the usual Fox/Leatt/RaceFace/Endura/TLD/Specialized suspects when considering mountain bike apparel. The brand is still relatively young, starting as a one man operation when Hideto Suzuki decided to ditch his career in high end fashion in 2007 and open up a shop Shibuya, Tokyo. Initially, the Pedaled focus was on the adventure and gravel side of what was an otherwise urban set of sensibilities, with an emphasis on material selection and manufacture in either Japan or Italy. The brand grew to include a full road line, while still maintaining unique visual design aspects and the Japan/Italy craftsmanship (along with price tags that raised some eyebrows), and recently expanded into mountain biking with the Pedaled Yama family of garb.

A couple things to consider before reading the rest of this review: First, if you are looking for something that is just like the abovementioned usual suspects in style and color, this might be a good time to duck out. The Pedaled Yama garments are different, visually and to a degree conceptually. They also usually tend come with price tags that would make eyes water, but in reality are not any more expensive than anyone else’s top-end clothing. AND, both the garments I am about to review are currently discounted on the Pedaled website, bringing them into direct competition with the meat of the market.

Yama Trail Pants

This is a deceptively simple, almost devoid of bells or whistles, summer to mid-shoulder season pair of trousers. The Yama Trail Pants are made from a stretch fabric that is a blend of “52% Nylon, 37% recycled Nylon, 11% Elastane.” There’s a vent panel across the rear just below the waist, a built in cinch-belt, discreet drawstrings at the ankles, two zippered hip pockets and one zippered side pocket with a different panel color. That’s about it. No elastic at the waist, no other vented panels in the rear or armored panels in the front, no radical shaping or articulation, not even a zipper fly or any sort of way to flay the pants open (although there is a sewn in highlight flap that looks like a fly but isn’t). These look more closely related to a simple pair of hiking pants (with just enough concession to knee pad wearers to be noticeable) than they do to some of the feature laden, “get rad” mtb trousers currently on the market.

At first, I was wishing for some more pizzazz. I mean, we’re talking about a $137 pair of pants (that initially retailed for $175!). But the more I rode in them, the more I came to really appreciate the Yama Trail Pants. They are comfortable and breathable, and remain comfortable and breathable in conditions ranging from the mid 40s up into the 80s fahrenheit. I generally tend to not wear long pants once the mercury gets into the 70s, since I am a copious sweater who overheats easily, but these were surprisingly accommodating all the way up to the point where I would ditch any long trousers, period. The simplicity and understated color grew on me. Maybe I’m just aging into my old hiker/birdwatcher phase, since I especially appreciated how well they complemented the old Nikon spotting scope I scored from Ebay in Japan. (Just an FYI, whether you are birding or trying to spot bullet holes in targets at 200 yards, Japanese glass is the way to go. But it costs a fortune. Unless you go to Ebay and start shopping for used Nikon stuff from Japan. Then you can get spotter scopes for a couple hundred bucks that would cost about four to eight times as much to equal in a new purchase here).

I’ve been wearing Rapha knee pads lately, and there’s room for them, or most other light pads. The overall fit is surprisingly relaxed. I ordered size Large, since I am a bit girthy in general compared to most cyclists, and because I anticipated that anything that combines Japanese and Italian design and construction would probably err on the side of javelin shaped bodies instead of brick shaped bodies. Turns out, these are loose enough I could probably size down to Mediums, as per the Pedaled sizing chart. That said, the Large Trail Pants fit loose and comfy without leaving me feeling like I am getting swallowed up by them. However, slim-fit hipsters will not be stoked. Bear in mind that since there is no elastic nor any form of fly, waist retention relies entirely on the built in belt (there are loops for “extra” beltage, or whatever else someone does with belt loops), and getting the pants on and off is going to be largely dependent upon how callipygian the wearer is. Meaning, flat-assers should probably size down. Bubble butts might want to go with recommended sizes or maybe even size up if Sir Mix-A-Lot plays on repeat in the personal soundtrack of your life.

Yama Trail Hooded Anorak

Following along the theme of finding a thing I like and never wanting to deviate from that again (as evidenced by a solemn procession of Patagonia down sweaters that have entered my world, starting out beautiful before degenerating eventually to shabby, stained, feather leaking, randomly tape patched shells of their former glory that eventually get sent back to the mothership in Ventura and deemed unrepairable, only to be replaced by the next victim), I present to you the anorak that everyone should own: this one.

Initially, I thought this was going to be one of those tops that lacked functional utility. You know the kind – bulky, not waterproof, too warm in warm conditions, not warm enough in the cold, neither fish nor fowl so to speak. Instead, what I discovered was a half-warm layer/half-jacket that performs over a surprising temperature range and swaddles me in the kind of comfort that makes me want to wear it all the time. There’s nothing revolutionary going on here – it’s all Nylon, not waterproof, and as with the Yama Trail Pants, there’s barely a bell or a whistle to be found anywhere. Sure, there’s a hood. And a zipper. And a sort of double layer windstop on the chest and arms. But all in all, this is a very basic garment.

It’s getting damn cold here in the high country. Like, sub 20 degree fahrenheit mornings, and long patches of ice and crusty snow that just don’t really get a chance to melt out. But on sunny days, it can still get up in the mid- to high- 50s. Might even hit 60 on a scorcher. I’ve been running this as a daily driver, on the bike or off, ever since the first snow fell. On the bike, I can run a thin merino base layer and this and nothing else, and be good for anything from freezing to about about 55 degrees. Above 60 and this combo starts to get a little too warm, but below that, I am impressed with how well it keeps me comfortable and at the same time how well it can shed heat when breathing hard. In colder conditions, it’s light enough to act as an excellent in between layer and even just adding a waterproof shell on top of a base layer and this extends the colder performance remarkably. The Yama Anorak also scores very high on the “laying around rewatching Deadwood while it snows outside” scale, and is very comfortable being worn against the skin with no sub-layer.

The waffle/fleecy Nylon is slightly stretchy, the windstop stuff isn’t. Cut and color is understated and low-key. Fit is, once again, surprisingly accommodating of the more well-fed body types among us. Niggles? Well, there are no pockets. It’s not waterproof. And the hood, while comfortable and warm when wrapped around my bald head, doesn’t have much in the way of closure adjustability and is just a bit too bulky to fit inside a helmet and at the same time too tight to really work outside a helmet. Hoods outside the helmet is not really my jam, but I’m new to this cold weather shit, and I have seen people doing it, so it’s apparently a thing. $125. That’s about $75 less than basically the same thing from Patagonia (okay, that has a pocket. One pocket), $85 less than the Pearl Izumi equivalent, and, if going toe to toe with other hipsters, a whole pile of cash less than anything similar from Rapha. If you want mine you’ll have to claw it from my cold, dead hands.

Okay, now that I've confirmed my adoration of the Pedaled Yama gear, I am going to leave this video here and quietly back out of the room. I wasn't kidding about the hipsters...

PEdALED Trail Hooded Anorak

PEdALED Trale Pants