Rule 28: Dissenting Opinion
Rule #28: “White is old school cool. Black is cool too, but were given a bad image by a Texan whose were too long. If you feel you must go colored, make sure they damn well match your kit.”
You bet white is old school and for good reason, it is the only color of cycling socks that is truly acceptable. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what color did Merckx wear? What color did Jesus wear in his all-too-short cycling career, Kelly, Coppi, Rik Van Steenbergen, Rik Van Looy, I could go on and on. Not one of them have worn anything but white socks. Years back, black shorts were a regulation of the cyclist’s uniform. It may have not occurred to people to try other colors but black shorts were the only allowed color. Perhaps white socks fell under the same regulations; I’ll let @Oli answer that question. Black socks, god damn it people, are not cool, maybe on a mountain bike while getting wicked air, but not in the world of road riding.
I’m obviously outnumbered by the other Keepers here or the Rule would be three words, “Socks are white.” Every one of the Keeper’s executive board meetings seems to end with me drunkenly banging the table, paraphrasing Bones, “In the name of humanity, Jim, Rule #28 must be revised,” as I slowly slide off my chair and disappear under the table into a puddle of my own sick.
Only in the last fifteen years have the standards been lowered and now it’s a total confusion of bad taste. Again I implore the jury, have we no pride in our guns? A tanned, shaved, well-honed gun can only be properly punctuated by a white sock. Granted the sock pool has become so fouled it’s nearly impossible to even find all-white socks so I won’t be an absolutists (cognoscenti?) but please, mostly white. I won’t even argue length, I find tall socks (Wiggo tall) an abomination but I guess that shows how damn old I am.
Let’s reverse the trend. We have wasted too much energy worrying about podium caps when not many of us are on the podium yet each and every day we ride we make a decision about our socks. If you want to look Pro, get in the know, have a sack, don’t wear black. Write your local Keeper and make your position known.
@paolo
Sorry old mate, I didn’t write the addenum to Rule #33 about making sure you can dish out the hurt if you choose not to shave the guns – it’s there. Was just posing a scenario for a similar addenum for sock colour. Was just a thought.
Steampunk – NOoooo! Damn, I do have a backup pair of boots in black, might have to dig them out.
Souleur – “4. Cav’s a midget, point taken, his socks don’t matter and he is the reason many masturbate and don’t procreate. My wife is getting over a rabid sinus infection and was blowing stuff out of her head that looked like Cavs green socks…and PRO or not, one should never have socks that color. Its just wrong.”
Woah now! Some of us are the same size as that Manxman. Socks aside, I think ya’ll are just jealous of our wee-yet-light-and-stiff frames, plus our normal looking head tubes. Don’t be hatin’ on the sub-175 centi lads! (though his style choices do leave something to be desired)
WHat bout gray. It’s not my fault, I was placing an online order and for a few dollars more I would get free shipping. So I got a pair of $10 cycling socks. $10 for one pair of socks and they were on sale!!! That’s crazy right? like spending $500 on a bottle of wineBut I was blinded by the lure of free shipping. Blinded also to the fact that they were ugly as sin. Everytime I wear them I am made aware that I am a fashion moron. But hey they have a lifetime warranty.
my ugly ass expensive socks
@Harminator
It was nice having you around! Be very, very scared if you ever visit Ireland.
@frank
Every time Frank posts a pick of his bike with that “yard o’seat pin” I keep thinking he must be 8′ tall and have arms 4′ long. It’s just not normal, I tell ya . . .
@Nof Landrien
I kinda agree here. White shoes = white socks. Black shoes = white or black socks. Shorts only? white at all times. Knee warmers/knicks, black, because if it’s that cold/chilly, you shouldn’t wear whire shoes.
@Steampunk
The Newcastle player is Paul Gascoigne. I’m sure the tosser deserved what he got.
@Steampunk
Possibly deserved it. One he’s wearing trainers. Two, he’s a ginger. Three, Vinnie’s playing for Leeds. That’s a license to be a merciless bastard. For evidence see the film The Damned United.
@DDD
Thank fuck most of those are covered by the shoes. The socks should have been free, not the shipping.
@ron
hey, no hater here, my wife is 4’10”, i love little people
you struck what a cord w/what I like to give Cav a hard time about, style & class. But hey, give him credit where it is due, he is making it over mtns that before his tender hymen couldn’t take
@wiscot
I’m going way off topic, but Gazza was part of a “talented” generation of British footballers””Hoddle, Robson, Butcher, etc.””who were supposed to bring the World Cup “home.” But never did, because they were never really that good. The Brits should have fielded a side of Vinnies and run roughshod over the world. The Irish did exactly that in 1990 and scared the bejayzus out of everyone. But they accepted that they were a lunchpail crew””domestiques everyone. More than twenty years on, though, I still giggle uncontrollably at both those pics.
Back on message. Black.
@wiscot
And he started out at Wimbledon, which was a pretty merciless outfit in the late 1980s.
@Steampunk
Ahem, that would be “talented” English footballers. You know, the ones for whom winning the world cup is their right ever since 1966 and those “Johnny Foreigner” types just keep insisting on ignoring the script and beating them. At least when Scotland (occasionally) qualify, no-one takes their dreams of winning the cup seriously. Alas, England truly “expect” every man will do their duty and bring the cup “home.” Frankly, a Frenchman will win the Tour before England next win the World Cup.
@Steampunk
@wiscot
Forget about the roundball game. This and this are what you need to get watching
@Marcus
Any eedjit can play with his hands. It takes a real man to play with his feet…
Cycling socks, no matter what colour, are dorky looking. And that is the cold hard truth. While totally dorky, they can be quite comfy. So I say go ahead, where whatever colour socks you like, this isn’t the Milan runway ;)
@Steampunk
looks like Vinnie was using his hands to play with something. Find it more than a little amusing that you see a squirrel grip as being a sign of toughness??
@Steampunk
Queue Oli.
@paolo
That’s what I’m sayin’ hea’. It does matter.
Paulo, I’m going to let you and G’phant do all my arguments from here on out.
@Marko
cue?
Holy chit! I’ll get my ruler out and measure my effin socks and get back to you. I would argue that it’s not the measure of the socks or the shorts. It’s the measure of the tan line between. In short, that area should be such that wearing anything less than your kit should be a signature to your commitment. That is to say that when you show up to the family picnic in flip flops, no one confuses you with a Candy Ass Triathilete.
Ummm, I’m in favor with high-as-all-get up wooleators. They indeed rule. Short socks be damned.
1) Of course it matters
2) length of sock shall be proportionate to the ratio of the length of the lower leg to the girth of the calf. In other words, stumpy, fat-asses riding their wives’ Terry’s need nice short ankle socks. Wiggo and Moreau (and WTH, COTHO) all need longer socks with Wiggo frankly just needing to cover the cachetic mess that are his lower legs.
3) black with black shoes, white with white shoes. Shoes shall complement the team kit. For example, FDJ riders should wear white or silver shoes, perhaps blue. Teams with predominantly black kits like the old Cervelo Test Team needed black shoes. If you have any black in your kit, you can do black shoes. If you have no black in your kit, no black shoes for you (Rabobank is a good example). Anything else is just a fashion faux-pas regardless of your badassedness quotient.
That should clear up all this bickering amongst you. Some people clearly have been listening to their fat, cankle-plagued, age group failing tri-geek friends. White ankle socks. Sheesh. What’s next, a ban on Lycra and those new-fangled clipless pedals? ;-)
To each his own, but for me black socks are fine… it is in my opinion however, the only option other than white. My cyclocross kit is usually black shorts, black shoes and black socks. Crisp white socks are great for dry riding, especially in summer, but when the weather turns I usually run black. Oh, and for me it’s only black shoes and shorts, minor logos and color trims are ok, but the blacker the better.
@Marcus
What, he’s not waiting in line?
@Souleur
Why the hell did Cipo allow that pic to be taken in the little ring with the chainrings on the opposite side?
Watched my wife do a duathlon yesterday. From the photo gallery, I give you 2 (two) examples of sartorial malfeasance, here and, may god have mercy on our souls, here.
Damn my eyes, it loads the whole gallery. Go to photos 96/137 and 88/137.
They do seem happy.
@xyxax
What the fuck are you doing posting those links here man?!?! There are so many kinds of wrongs in those pics. Just the Rule #33 and Rule #82 violations alone are enough to make my eyes bleed. I.HATE.YOU.
IMG_1311.JPG
Black or white, appropriate length, no logos. No fucking colored socks (like green, that’s an option??!!). That is all.
@Marko
whut?
@xyxax
So I gotta ask the question: even if you are only a tri-geek, don’t race cycling only races ever, if you’re wearing a wife beater jersey, what in the name of Merckx’s sack do you need arm warmers for??!!?? I’m with @Marko, I hate you too.
@scaler911
For those times when your arms and core are really cold, but your shoulders are burning up..
@mcsqueak
Ya. That shit happens to me all the time. Never would’a thought a guy that swims, bikes and runs coulda taught me something. Might even recommend to the board of my team that our new kick ass Castelli kits come sleeveless.
I’m with you Gianni, white is the way.
Luckly is not the Texan that started the schism, look here.
Gentlemen, FFS. We had a great discussion going with the inaugural Belgian Affirmations thread (aside: hereby nominating Belgian Affirmations for a place alongside “Anatomy of a Photo,” “La Vie,” etc. series), but really — socks? What socks?
@Nate
Ahah, great…
@Nate
nipple lube
hopefully this thread won’t segue into a war over synthetic chamois color and the number of angels on the head of a pin.
@itburns
Or the Big Endians and little endians of Gulliver’s travels.
@jojo
Dorky is a bit harsh? Awesomeness has to start somewhere, bottom up – shoes-socks-knicks-etc. This is where Rule #2 has to step in before the damage is done.
@itburns
Red and red only, right?
A duathlon? So now three things are too hard for them to do? I’m hearing more and more people casually mention doing a try-athlon. “Wow, that guy seems kind of big to do that. And he is smoking and drinking quite a lot of tequila.” Then it turns out they’re doing 1/58th of a full one. Jeez! Those are not the same. You can’t say it as if you’re doing the real deal.
And am I the only one getting annoyed with runners running the wrong way AND taking up a lane? I see it more and more around here, especially out on country roads. Drivers hardly give me two measly feet of shoulder but these joggers think they can take up a lane?! When there is a nice, wide, grassy shoulder? On Sunday I saw a guy doing this within city limits, though there is both a sidewalk and a jogging trail around the uni campus, which was one block over. It pisses me off how much respect pedestrians and joggers get, but we get squat since we involve a machine? Or they just don’t like adults on kid toys? I don’t know, but joggers are treated by drivers like saintly gifts bestowed upon us while we put up with constant near-misses.
This sleeveless top is making my shoulders cold.
xyxax – I meant to say, “Oh wow, those are great photos! Those folks really look like they know how to have a good time!”
@Marko
@scaler911
In the end, it is the children that suffer. My two little girls were present, bearing witness. There’s no medicine that cures that kind of trauma.
@Ron
Duathlon encouragement is my secret plan to convert my wife from runner to road cyclist. She was really disappointed with her cycling and realizes she needs a bike upgrade; a 2012 CAAD 10 WSD 48cm tops her wish list at the moment.
@xyxax
Thank Christ those pics load really small. Minimized the trauma. This is why we have rules and standards – we are not tri-athletes.
@xyxax
@ marko:
Cipo, in the height of his narcissism & exhibitionism (which he backed up btw) overlooked the ‘little’ things evidently
Has this been Eddy, he would have made cipo look overdresseds as Eddy would not have even needed shoes; he would have just clipped his toes in and said ‘lets rock’
@Pedale.Forchetta
Is it compulsory for derny riders to have walrus moustaches – or was it just Belle Epoque Movember ?
To be fair, the chain on the wrong side suggests that the artist may not have paid great attention to detail… or sock colour.
@xyxax
Great, now we need a whole new Belgian Affirmations photo thread to undo that damage from that: