Swrve 4-way stretch indigo Cordura slim fit jeans

The Swrve 4-way stretch indigo Cordura slim fit jeans are extremely comfortable, and if you're doing short bike commutes or rides into town they're much better than 'normal' jeans – and few people will realise these aren't normal. The cut, stretch and durability are all impressive.

For more casual-looking options to wear on the bike, check out our guide to the best cycling clothes for commuting.

> Buy now: Swrve 4-way stretch indigo Cordura slim fit jeans for £90 from Swrve

These cycling jeans do something I wish normal ones would: they fit when you lean over or crouch down. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but I've got seriously bored trying to find jeans that aren't cut higher at the front than the back for, I assume, fashion reasons; reasons that will forever remain beyond my understanding. The Swrves are higher at the back – not so high it shows, but high enough to count – and just this feature alone makes them nicer to wear whether you're cycling or not. It's like they've been shaped for bodies that bend forwards in the middle. Imagine that!

Radical as this is, Swrve doesn't stop there. The four-way stretch to the Cordura denim allows easy movement, and the extra panel in the crotch – a diamond that runs underneath and tapers down each inner thigh – means there's no central seam to cause issues with saddles.

You get a good number of well-placed belt loops for very secure support, and they're wide enough to easily take chunky belts (another thing many 'regular' jeans get wrong).

Swooping dramatically to the other end of what I might stiffly call 'the garment' brings us to the leg ends, or hems. They're designed to be rolled up, as that reveals the reflective taping on the seam, but if you don't like the 1970s turn-up look, no matter, there's still a benefit: they're nice and slim around the ankle, and fairly easily kept away from chains.

In the 34/34 size we were sent I found the legs long enough to avoid showing half a mile of sock as I pedalled, but they weren't so long that they piled up excessively on my shoes while walking. The sizing seems comparable to any other jeans – I vary between 34 and 32, depending on who's made them.

Though the waist fitted me without rucking up when cinched, I did find these just slightly voluminous from the pockets to the knees. However, Swrve's sizes include every inch, so really I should be in a 33, if not a 32, and I'm pretty confident that would slim the top half out. Better still, each size is available with three different leg lengths, so you really should be able to find a very good fit.

Swrve recommends you wash these first to reduce the chances of staining your legs blue in the rain, though I had no issues with a little light drizzle. Cordura denim dries quicker than regular denim, too, and feels notably tougher – thick but without the weight you'd expect. It breathes better than you might think as well – these stayed comfortable on some quite humid, 16-20°C days. You won't want to be sprinting anywhere in them, though.

This fabric apparently includes military-grade INVISTA T420 nylon 6.6 staple fibre, and Swrve has quite an entertaining story about how many rubs denim can withstand in testing (the Martindale Abrasion BS EN ISO 12947-2:1999, doncha know). It seems this fabric took so many rubs they eventually had to switch off the rubbing machine at 250,000 rubs, defeated and, I like to think, with a trembling lower lip. Presumably quarter of a million rubs is a military-grade rubbing.

I'm just happy that humanity has invented a rubbing machine that counts rubs.

Value

A price of £90 puts these in the same bracket as desirable brands such as Levi's; jeans from less recognisable brands are usually less than half that. They're a good price amongst cycling jeans, though.

The Vulpine Men's Omnia Cycling Jeans are £100, for instance, while the Osloh Lane Bike Jeans are £126, and once you add US postage and the Brexit VAT dividend you can probably double it... (and there's the rub, once again).

Overall

These are very nice jeans even if you're not riding – they're very comfortable and don't need hitching back up every five minutes if you're doing something active. The fabric feels very durable, the cycling-specific features are useful but very stealthy, and they look good. If you don't mind paying fancy-brand money without getting a (recognisable) fancy name, they're really an excellent option.

Verdict

Comfortable and hard wearing, plus the subtle cycling tweaks actually make them better off the bike too