SPECIALIZED TRAIL CARGO
£75
SPECIFICATION Weight: 263g • Sizes: 30-40in • Inseam: 13.5in • Colours: Black • Contact: specialized.com
Do you enjoy the cool vibes that come from riding in skintight, cut-off jean shorts? Nah, us neither.
But we do love the tailored fit of the Specialized Trail
Cargo short. The Trail Cargo has a few decent features that bump it up our short pecking order – there are two hand pockets for lolling about in, and two zippered pockets – one of which is just the right shape and size to snug your phone to your upper thigh without it budging. Keeping these slacks around your waist is a simple button closure, with adjustment straps either side of your hips. There’s no zip, instead you just get a sliver of mesh fabric, perhaps as a bug guard to fend off summer intruders.
There are no fancy zippered vents on the thighs to cool you down, but Specialized has laser cut small holes into the legs. We’re not big fans of this approach – plenty of us still like wearing shorts in cooler weather, and there’s no way to stop the wind whistling through the gaps. Wet weather performance is also disappointing. Despite supposedly being equipped with a Vaporrize water-repellent coating, our sample short soaked up water like a sponge in our DWR test.
If the Trail Cargo had an effective DWR and was just an inch longer we’d bump it up a mark or two, but it disappoints if you’re over 6ft tall, sometimes revealing the dreaded gap between pad and short.
It’s nevertheless a decent option for the less gangly out there.