About a month ago (though it seems like much longer), I got the chance to meet up with Lululemon PR exec Nathalie Balfour.  Here, she shares with me what the brand is all about (besides making your butt look good).

For those of us who are not looking to win any races, biking is become more fashionable. Take the spate of retro-cool bikes on the market (not to mention the fact that Hermes, Gucci, and Chanel have recently come out with bicycles).

This $79 all weather pant comes in colors like khaki, navy, and olive

One of the things I love about Mollie is that she’s unabashedly put “looking cute” near the top of our priority list.  Take this morning’s post-ride email for example:

“This morning I rode in Central Park with Rob which was actually kind of discouraging because he’s so much faster than me and I just wasn’t feeling great on the bike. Did about 22 mi.  OH wore my new smartwool stuff, which was super comfy but the top is RED which clashes with my PINK shoes. Tragic.”

As a form of procrastination for a piece on locals Vegas that I must must must absolutely write today, I’ve been paging through the Athleta catalog and may have found a solution for the biker short dilemma:  The dipper pant.  It’s semi-fitted, water resistant, with loads of pocks, and a draw string (as Mollie notes, room for expansion is always good).  I’m thinking we might be able to pull these on OVER our never-sexy biking shorts whenever we make pitstops.

While I may not be quite as fashionable as my riding partner, I have to confess that I’m not averse to looking good on the road.  In Vancouver, for example, I test drove some Lululemon gear:  The Cool Racerback survived the bike ride to the Grind and then the Grind itself (at which point, I switched it out for a clean, dry and totally geeky “I survived the Grind” souvenir t-shirt).  The Groove Pant fit over my padded bike shorts (and still managed to make my butt look pretty good) and was perfect for Sunday evening Yin yoga class.  And the Gratitude Wrap was ideal for post-yoga and a night out on the town.

Sleek and functional

Flipping through some back issues of Bicycling, I found this svelte jersey by Icebreaker.  Besides being form-fitting, the jersey–like all Icebreaker garments–comes with a Baacode, which lets you find the farm that produced the sheep, whose wool was used to make your shirt.  Pretty baaaad ass.