Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

Before Black Friday, I found myself doing what I always do when I’m about to buy cycling gear: overthinking.

Cycling isn’t just a hobby for me. It’s the thing that structures my week. I train three times during the week (around two hours per session), and then add 4 more hours over the weekend. Do the math. That’s a serious portion of my life spent sitting on a bike. At that point, gear stops being an accessory and becomes infrastructure. Comfort matters. Breathability matters. Fit matters. And above all, expertise matters. When you spend that many hours in the saddle, you’re not buying clothes. You’re buying something you’ll live inside of.

That’s why I’ve always gravitated toward brands whose entire reason for existing is cycling. PAS and MAAP have been my reference points. Not because they’re perfect, but because they understand the sport. Or at least, they did until a few months ago, when my PAS bibs started showing wear in places I’d rather not think about. The stitching began to come undone. The pad shifted. Nothing dramatic, but enough to plant a thought I hadn’t entertained in years: maybe it’s time to try something else.

I wasn’t looking to abandon cycling brands. Quite the opposite. I just wanted something different, still rooted in the sport. That’s when Attaquer appeared on my radar. A very cool brand. Low visibility in Monterrey (for now). Which, honestly, made it even more appealing. Anyone who rides here knows how this goes: give it a little time and suddenly the entire grupeta looks like a coordinated photoshoot.

So I did what any reasonable adult does before spending money on Lycra: I researched obsessively. Prices. Reviews. Reddit threads. Fit guides. Return policies. The full ritual. Naturally, my phone noticed. And that’s when the ads started. Not subtle ones either. The kind that follow you across apps until curiosity turns into irritation, and irritation into pride. I’m not buying it just because you keep chasing me, I told myself.

And then something happened that didn’t just interrupt my buying process. It stopped me cold...

An ad for cycling bibs. From a fast fashion brand (Zzzzzzz.).

I stopped scrolling.

For a brief second, I wondered if I was being unfair. Maybe this was the future. Maybe expertise mattered less than accessibility. But the thought refused to settle. This wasn’t about thhis fast fashion store being wrong. It was about me realizing where I draw the line.

To be clear, thiZzzzz fast fashion btrand does many things very well. My girlfriend loves it, and I understand why. She puts together incredible outfits from there. This brand solves problems. If I have an event and nothing to wear, this Ztore is my emergency exit. They’re fast, efficient, and deeply in tune with fashion cycles. They generate FOMO, refresh collections constantly, and understand trend velocity better than almost anyone.

But cycling made me pause.

Not because fast fashion can’t technically produce cycling gear. It can. The question is different: what happens to a brand’s meaning when it stretches too far?

This is where brand stretching either becomes a smart strategic move or quietly turns into brand dilution. Stretching works when a brand expands without breaking its core promise. It’s like a great restaurant opening a second location across town. Same menu. Same philosophy. Same experience. The brand grows, but the meaning stays intact.

Dilution happens when the expansion feels like a change of subject. When you’re no longer sure what the brand is actually good at. A fast fashion brand entering cycling isn’t shocking because of the product. It’s shocking because of the category.

Which brings us to category authority.

Category authority isn’t about reach, budget, or how many people recognize your logo. It’s about permission. It’s who you trust when things go wrong. If something fails three hours into a ride, who do you blame? And more importantly, who did you trust enough to put yourself in that situation in the first place?

PAS, MAAP, Attaquer have permission to exist in cycling because they’ve earned it over time. Through iteration. Through mistakes. Through listening to riders who spend entire mornings questioning their life choices on a saddle. They speak the language. They understand details that only matter once you’ve been there long enough.

A hypothetical example makes this clearer. Imagine a luxury watch brand launching a smartwatch. That’s brand stretching.

Now imagine that same brand launching running shoes. You’d pause. Not because they can’t manufacture them, but because the authority isn’t there. You don’t trust them with your feet the way you trust them with your wrist. The store i mentioned before doesn’t lack capability. It lacks history in the category. And that doesn’t mean no one will buy those bibs. A beginner might. Someone curious might. Someone just entering the sport might feel safer buying from a familiar name. And that’s likely the strategy.

But authority in cycling isn’t borrowed. It’s accumulated.

At some point during this internal debate, an old saying popped into my head: the one who squeezes too much, covers too little. Not every category needs to be conquered. Not every adjacent opportunity deserves attention. Sometimes, focus is the brand. In the end, I bought the Attaquer bibs. It wasn’t a dramatic decision. It just felt right. Like choosing someone who speaks your language without needing explanations.

Ironically, I still haven’t worn them.

The day I was finally going to try them, my bike had a flat tire. And like any cyclist with more than five years of riding under his belt, I stood there completely unable to change it myself.

Humbling, really.

Maybe that’s the real lesson here. Brands, like cyclists, don’t need to do everything. They need to do their thing well. Authority isn’t built by entering every race. It’s built by showing up, again and again, in the one you were made for.

If anyone knows how to change bicycle tires, let me know...