Keep the guns under cover until it's time to fight.
It is well known that knee warmers look better than leg warmers. Which isn’t to say leg warmers can’t look the business as well, but they will never look as good as knee warmers. The science is very clear on this.
Nevertheless, I’ve been enjoying wearing full leg warmers even when the weather doesn’t necessarily require them. Something about the orange bands getting nice and cozy with my orange Bonts has me mesmerized. But, since they were designed for the Classic V-Kit with the chevrons running along the cuffs, they don’t properly match the VLVV V-Kit. Which presents a small challenge because then the cuffs on the jersey doesn’t match the cuffs on the leg warmers, so that shit needs to be covered up. Which means if I’m riding in that kit with leg warmers, I’m compelled to wear overshoes irrespective of the weather. Which are also orange and also mesmerizing.
This is all very natural, there is nothing mysterious in it.
But what has always been mysterious is how a rider with the kind of impeccable taste, style, and class like Tom Boonen could suffer the indignity of wearing his leg warmers over the legs of his bibs. Everyone knows they go under the bibs and booties, and over the socks. Basic laws of Physics, right there with gravity and e=mc2. Tom often wears them properly in training, so it is obvious he understands this. It has, until recently, completely dumbfounded me.
Thanks to me being a strangely obsessive individual with a unjustifiable willingness to ask near-strangers to clarify things that should not be kicking around in anyone’s head in the first place, I have managed to gain clarity on this matter. One evening during the Rouleur Classic at a noisy hotel bar, the question was loudly posed to none other than Chris Juul-Jensen, whose approachable nature made him seem like the right guy to ask. He raised an eyebrow and immediately agreed that it looks completely rubbish and he would never do it himself. But he went on: it turns out that the big boys in the bunch do this as a statement that their race does not start until 50 km from the finish. In a race of 250 kilometers, only the last fifth matters, and it is more important to Look Fantastic on the finish line than on the start line. Particularly if you happen to be the one with their arms in the air. Until then, the gunslingers are just sitting in and trying to stay warm while the domestiques are flogging themselves to bits on the front.
If you’re a gunslinger, and you’re bringing your game to the party, then this is how you tell the wee folk that you’re what’s going to happen.
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@Buck Rogers
Paolini.
@Philonius
Right. The guy who has had an amazing resurgence to his career at the ripe old age of 38 who tested positive for coke at the TDF which most people think was probably secondary to re-infusing a blood bag that he had drawn off sometime this spring and stored, not realizing that he had coke in his system when it was given. Then he re-infused it during the Tour and popped positive.
Of course, that's just a theory. I personally think that it was Tyler's unborn twin that used the coke. Of perhaps Contador's rangy beef???
@Philonius
I'm with you on this one. Paoloni is a legend and one of the most individual riders in the peloton. Plus, he's my excuse for flagrantly breaking rule#50.
@Buck Rogers
Yep, this, got it in one. The other players have to look good all day as that's their only play.
@DavyMuur
Fucks sake! PAOLINI!
@Buck Rogers
@Buck Rogers
Fucking this Fucking that ,thought we were supposed to have some class FFS
Well fuck, and here I thought class was not using the "C" word around here.
@Buck Rogers
using * b/c * be true class
@Buck Rogers
Kudos to Paolini for wearing the same colour leg warmers as knicks. If you need to wear them then they should match.
The designer of Katusha kit is obviously colour blind but the D/S is really the one who should be shot for allowing red knicks.
Maybe this is why Paolini got so whacked out... saw his team kit made him look like one of those clowns that get shot out of a cannon in the circus and just couldn't face it.
I can only assume the safety pin has come from his dealer.
@Fred
His may not have started yet, but he can certainly end the race of a few others fighting for the gutter a hundred riders back. That's where the real gutterbitching goes on...