We gather here today to pay our respects to one of the icons of our great sport, the cycling cap. The perfect union of form and function and an excellent example of why the former follows the latter, and why together they are beautiful. The brim is just long enough to shield the eyes from the elements, but is short enough to allow the rider to gaze up the road with head tilted in determination as steady drips of water fall from the apex of the brim and and tap out the rhythm of the stroke. The cloth construction is comfortable under a helmet or hairnet, and allows it to be easily stuffed into a jersey pocket when not needed.
It’s appearance is clumsy; the short, stubby brim can be flipped upward or downward and, generally made of cotton, cap’s shape is soft and floppy. Yet, it has been worn by the Greatest Greats of our sport with a transcendent sense of cool. Over time, it became a badge of honor for those of us living La Vie Velominatus; wearing a cycling cap in public amongst the uninitiated felt almost like bragging that you were in on a secret – the cycling cap was what we used to recognize one of our own in a crowd of nonbelievers.
Then something started to change. Frist this guy, and these guys, and then this fucking guy started wearing our sacred headpiece, and rather than being mistaken for Giants of the Road, we were mistaken for douchebags. The unpalatable and tragic truth is that almost overnight, the history and culture that the cycling cap represented was mistaken for little more than a social prop used by hipsters who suck even more than cyclists at picking up dates at the local cafe.
Slowly but surely, the status of the cycling cap has diminished to where we are today, with the brim of our noble cap barely visible beneath our compulsory helmets only on days where the weather merits its use and Rule #22 forbidding it’s use off the bike. We’ve arrived at a place where the men who climb upon the podiums of our storied races wear something more akin to a baseball cap than to the cap that brings back memories of the hardmen of our sport.
I leave you, my fellow Velominati, with some of the great images that show our fallen icon at the height of it’s status as a Symbol of Cycling.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/cycling caps/”/]
Thanks to @Geoffrey Grosenbach for inspiring this humble eulogy.
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Great piece Frank. Absolutely great!`
Our friend, the sacred cycling cap, is not entirely dead. With douchebags like Landis and jerkbaits who have a confused look w/a baseball cap running up the poidum, its most understandable that 'the cap' may be due for a eulogy. But if I may kindly make my observation. Class and style cannot...absolutely cannot flaunt itself all the time, less it becomes ordinary and usual, and becaus of that the cycling cap is special. As we all well know, the cap poignantly makes its prescence known when donned, and most properly it trumps lesser riders without...every time. But we cannot wear it when summer heat pulsates, we cannot wear it to the store to pick up a loaf of bread, we cannot wear it on a hot date downtown. We can however wear it when IT deserves it, like in fall when autumn sets in and reminds us that hard riding is just about to come. We can ride it when the north wind blows, wool and base layers are required and we need to cover our head to keep a little more heat in our suffering corpse. We can ride it when as your beautifully describe the grey days of a cold drizzle, when many choose not to ride...well its then my friend we ride and we may don our friend the cap in celebration of a hard lone wolf day in the saddle.
The cap is not dead, but its season for me is just beginning. Mine has a black brim, white cap and belgian stripes down the middle. Bring it! I am ready for mine.
@Rusty Tool Shed
iShares needles?
Tres, tres bien ecrit!
I also agree with M. Souleur.
For the record; I love my cycle caps and more often than not wear one, mainly under my helmet it is true.
Let's the euphemeral fashion-junkies use it a bit as their act will quickly be forgotten in History, as insignificant as they are, whilst the memories of the Merckx et al will remain.
What pisses me off is the "stylized" versions of the cap that aren't really intended to be used while cycling, but are worn in public so that the wearer is identified as a "cyclist"...or sorry... "biker".
That image of Eddy is awesome! BITD I was always a long haired metalhead so I could never pull off the cycling cap look, it made me look like a chumpstain. Besides it looked way bitchin' to have the mane flowing in the wind.
@KitCarson
Here you go Kit. For the aspiring celebrity chef or those who just have to shout out "I'm hip." Slap a Cinzano logo on it and you are podium ready.
@pakrat hahaha...nice. Maybe if the hipster's could adopt this as their new trend, we could have our caps back all to ourselves?? This look obviously needs to go viral in the hipster universe....
I agree w/Kit...oh please let the hipsters see that foto. Just leave our niche alone, caps and all. 'Riders' prefer that.
I can see the next hipster fad, the big cheap-freak white rim hipster sunglasses and cycling cap and fixie bike that they entirely cannot ride. The cap is just crying please relieve me, please take me off his head....
@Souleur Someone told me recently (sorry, Frank), that the next up-and-coming hipster fad is apparently Oakley Jawbones...soon we're going to see thousands of hipsters wearing cycling specific eyewear...
@pakrat @KitCarson @Souleur
Sadly, it doesn't work that way. Hipsters are followers, not leaders (ironically enough). They'll adopt such a hat if we wear it first, and then they can and make it ironic-like. Hence Jawbones. Since such a hat won't fit under a helmet or into the back pocket of a jersey, this won't catch on in cycling circles and, therefore, won't take off unless we can get some other cultural cadre to adopt it for us.