Team USA: Doomed From The Start
The Road Cycling World Championships are on our doorstep. The USA is hosting, which makes me nervous immediately. How can we fuck this up? Ask Taylor Phinney for starters. This event has not been hosted by the USA since Moreno Argentin won in Colorado almost thirty years ago. We just don’t have the experience to pull off cycling events of this importance. The police are used to impeding cyclists, not protecting them.
But the Americans can’t win either the women’s or men’s road races simply because of the awful kit they have to wear. All V will be drained by the lameness of the jersey. The Rainbow Jersey would refuse to even slip on over such an abomination. Back in the day, Greg LeMan wore the Captain America jersey and won the World Championship at age 22. Going into the worlds as Captain America is a lot more powerful than whatever the hell this new design is. FFS, give these riders a chance. Representing your country in the World Championship should be a highlight of any cyclist’s career.
The Belgians, the Aussies, the Italians, The French: they all have jerseys that say we are here as a select, badass team and we are going to fuck you up. The American’s look like a trade team for a car dealership. It hurts. The Spanish might be in trouble too by the look of last year’s design and the fact they generally refuse to work at crunch time.
Best Kit Ever? Source: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images Europe)
@wiscot
Yes, but it took a foresighted French woman to translate one of his paintings into the best kit ever. Just like someone took Betsy Ross’s work and came up with the Captain America kit.
Not sure where the bozo found inspiration this year though…
That image of Vos the boss and her honor guard of Dutch henchwomen makes my Cloggy heart swell a bit with nationalistic pride, I must admit.
You see, that’s what makes me mad as hell when some foreigner makes assumptions about us Americans.
You never, never ever ever mix beef jerkey with your chewing tobacco.
@TBONE
@TBONE
The holster is standard issue. :^)
The answer . Have anyone but a yank design the next kit .
@Gianni
Just remember the massive difference in meaning between minge and minger kids!
Well….shite, here I am on a Monday, looking forward to ditching work early on Friday and heading up to Richmond. And now, now you’ve made me less excited. Spain needs more white, less red and yellow. It’s a hot country, the kit makes me feel hotter. The U.S kit….well, that just needs to be blown up and started again from zero.
Potholes on the course? Goddamn!
And yes, Gianni. Sadly, cops and most motorists treat cyclists as squirrels, or worse, criminals. Hey, at least Delaware has pulled out “Share the Road” signs and replaced them with “Cyclists May Use Full Lane.” It’s a start, at least.
@KogaLover
I don’t think Vonn or Julie race for the U.S. ski team; they race with them, hence the different speed suits…
The Eritrean kit is not subtle, but I like what I see:
@Gianni
Just make sure you don’t get the words muddled, the meanings are very different.
Also, you pronounce the ‘g’ in ‘minge’ but not in ‘minging’.
Glad to help.
Pretty much any jersey will work if worn with black shorts. Some better than others but black shorts give a LOT of leeway.
Australia/Belgium/Holland/NZ…all ok. Italy is borderline, no matter how classy azure blue is. Spain is just awkward. England should have Rapha
England??? That team doesn’t exist.
Trying to find a decent picture but watching the Women’s ITT right now and the Rwandan kit is absolutely superb
U.S. Kits are Harlem Globetrotters inspired. Fuckin joke!
Doesn’t quite show the full glory, but here’s Rwanda’s kit on a trailblazer
@Al__S
Sweet! And I’m digging the typeface on the arms too.There are so many talented graphic designers in the US, why can’t they find one that has taste and esign sensibility? Or just say screw it and go back to what LeMan wore FFS. It’s like football (soccer) kits in the UK – they change them every bloody season and offer up some real dross. The Scotland national team used to wear red socks, white shorts, blue top with maybe a white collar. Simple, stylish and classy. Now it looks like they ask elementary age kids to design it.
@Craigyboywonder
except at Commonwealth games…
@frank
Team bibs with National kit was the shit!
@Oli
Awesome eh! In case anyone’s wondering, NZ’s Linda Villumsen won the TT this morning…
@brett
All black works for me.
Thanks, Brett. WTF happened to my caption??
@Bianchi Denti
All black is indeed awesome, and clearly fast, but ultimately rainbow stripes are the hottest jersey of them all. Fantastic race yesterday
Surprised to see Mr Martin as far down as 7th…
@RobSandy
No kidding. Just as well there wasn’t a VSP on this one. I think very few of us would have scored points. That being said, I score very few when there actually is a VSP.
@brett
Great ride, great result. But she’s about as NZ as Froome is British. Just sayin’.
@wiscot
Amen to that. We would have seen a lot of “3 points” for both men’s and women’s ITT VSP. Still, it’s good to see an anonymous work horse like Kiryienka get some reward and recognition.
@Harminator
She chose to live in NZ at the age of 16, even though it took her a lot longer to actually gain citizenship – you don’t get more Kiwi than actually choosing to forswear your ex-country in favour of ours.
USA kit is fugly. Belgian kit is just classic, timeless badass.
This has a Captain America superhero-ish vibe going for it, which would be appropriate for Team USA. Also a little WW2 reminiscent. Stock jersey design from a Chinese manufacturer.
@chuckp
That’s not bad. If they dropped the black for blue and added a star on the front, it’d be awesome.
@wiscot
@wiscot
Unfortunately, their online design tool only allows limited playing around with the design and colors. The front all blue with a star. Maybe the black on the back red instead? But certainly someone with some artistic talent could riff off of this to create a USA jersey that doesn’t look like a NASCAR billboard and also isn’t Euro. Not that Euro isn’t cool (it is and why I love the Belgian jersey), but a USA jersey should have its own identity that speaks to the USA. Hence, a Captain America superhero-ish kind of jersey without being over the top would seem to be something appropriate.
@Oli
Thanks Oli. I was about to chime in on this too. They had totally different reasons for choosing to change nationalities. Only one of them made millions from doing so, and then chose to live in Monaco anyway.
@DeKerr
This Canadian says the CDN jerseys, although not perfect, show enough respect for tradition to go with the powder blue as the dominant color. Canada has had a terrible habit of changing colors & designs too often. Pan-Am jersey is s perfect example of that.