Review: Belgian Boys Club’s Philip the Handsome Socks
(2018) The requirement of surnames in much of the world has eliminated the use of adjectives to identify people. I suppose it helps if the subject had accomplished something great. Think of the famous people in history with adjectives to their name: William the Conqueror (I guess that’s a noun), Catherine the Great, Alexander the Great, Timur the Lame (that’s not so positive), and the lesser known Philip the Handsome. They are all famous people with first names coupled to adjectives. William the Conqueror is sometimes called William the Bastard but I digress.
Philip the Handsome was the founder of the Habsburg dynasty in Spain despite ruling for only one month before his death. He married the descriptively datable Joan the Mad to inherit the Castile kingdom. When Philip the Handsome’s mother-in-law died, the throne was sent to Philip’s father-in-law, Ferdinand, because Joan was in the Netherlands. Philip wanted the throne for himself and raised a remarkable army. He orchestrated Ferdinand’s withdrawal and was set to take the throne when he was stricken with fever and died. His son, Charles I of Spain, assumed the throne of Aragon and Castile in 1516 and began a two-century Habsburg leadership. The name Habsburg is ubiquitous with European Imperialism. The name Habsburg extends all the way back to 1020 and is loosely translated as ‘Hawks Castle.’
Philip the Handsome
Yes. This is an article about cycling socks.
Belgian Boys Club is no stranger to our page. (Click on the Belgian Boys Club tag at the bottom of this article to see what we mean.) When we got the socks in the winter we were excited to use them. However their lightweight in the cold coupled with their brilliant white in the wet and muddy conditions made them difficult to show off. Now that comfortable spring riding weather has shown up, so too have the Philip the Handsome cycling socks by Belgian Boys Club.
Scroll all the way back to our beginnings and the first apparel review ever written on creakybottombracket.com involved Belgian Boys Club socks. It was a three pack. Over the years the company has stayed true to producing uniquely solid color socks. Initially they offered white, black, and yellow socks. Then came black, Belgian blue, and white socks. Only the second generation contained subtle stripes. For Philip the Handsome, the lines are less than subtle.
It’s not hard to see the bold lines in the color of the Belgian flag. The lines themselves are arguably longer than Philip the Handsome’s time on the throne. They certainly live up to the adjective as handsome. There is no overly pizzazzed graphics to take over the socks. These Belgian Boys Club socks are designed with the intention of complementing a full BBC kit. Sure, go ahead and wear these with something else, but they will look better with Tommeke Belgian bibs and a Koppenberg jersey. Starting out matchy-matchy makes the cyclist inherit the adjective of handsome.
Make no mistake, while Belgian Boys Club makes quality kits, their socks are not to be overlooked. They possess a comfortable stretchy feel while providing the right amount of compression. We won’t blame you if you walk around in the socks hours prior to the ride. They’re just that comfortable. Perhaps one other way to earn the epithet is by sporting the Philip the Handsome socks off the bike, too. By slipping these socks on can earn the adjective ‘Handsome.’ You didn’t even have to dethrone someone from queen or kingship unless you were on the bike. Then there are some mountains whose queens and kings are waiting to be dethroned.
