If there's any brand in cycling that simultaneously embodies the sport's core, history-steeped traditions as well as its more adventurous, sometimes-radical fringes, it's Rapha. The UK-based bike brand known for its high-quality apparel can simultaneously pay homage to the founding of a race like the Giro d'Italia with its frequent use of the color pink while incurring a multi-thousand-euro fine for "non-compliant clothing" at the very same event. That penalty was the result of a surprising collaboration with London-based skateboard brand Palace, and now Rapha is joining forces with another style brand—this time it's Brain Dead—on an ultramodern new collection of mountain biking clothing.
When Rapha debuted its first MTB line a few years ago, it followed the clean, understated aesthetic that the company established itself with. But the Brain Dead collab, as anyone familiar with that brand's recent work with The North Face, Evolv, or ASICS might predict, might better be summed up as psychedelic.
