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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But it's not dead, on the contrary, in single speed circles the cycling cap has almost been de-riguer of recent years and something taken on by those dammed hipsters. So perhaps there is something to thank them for...
Frank, great article... and it is sad. I love my cycle cap and I do have to admit, Rule 22 is where I am most likely to stray from the path (I'll email you a couple of photos to post when I get home to my proper pc). These caps - coupled with the ageold wool jerseys with pockets on the lower back (LOVE Eddie's Molteni jersey in your photo article) - really do hark back to a different age that, sadly, I think has gone.
I remember reading Tommy Simpson's autobiography, and he found another unique use for the cycle cap... when he needed to take a dump in a race, he'd call up one of his domestiques and ask for his cap (that is, when he didn't have dysentery, in which case, unlucky for his mechanic) as a useful portable receptacle that he could then throw away... apparently Barry Hoban, years later, still remembers the pain and loss of having to hand over his well loved, favourite cap to the Major .... but hey ho, he ended up marrying Simpson's widow, so I guess he got even in the end.
Awesome article, freakin awesome photos! Style personified. If only those infernal fixie douches hadn't ripped the heart and soul from the humble cap, we could abolish Rule 22 and return to the glory days of off-the-bike cool. I think we should all take the Tommy S approach and shit in the cap of the next hipster we see wobbling down the street in slim fit jeans.
Speaking of hipsters, one corollary that I discovered to being "Too Fat Too Climb" is that you're also "Too Fat To Be A Hipster". How are you supposed to squeeze into the appropriate wear? Hipster jeans, unlike our beloved Lycra, don't stretch (cue Lampre-man?). Similiarly, unless your a Le Petit Frere Grimpeur, when you are peaking, the guns are far too substantial to be harangued by such silliness.
I wonder what the historical role of the universalization of helmets has done to the cap. Not just in the pro peloton, but also among kids and pleasure cyclists. The weather took a turn for the cooler at the beginning of September here, and I don't think I've ridden without a cap under my helmet since...
Any article leading off with a photo of the cocky young Eddy on the podium in San Remo is already awesome. Those photos are an excellent collection of old school V style we should all study and the guns on these guys!
If I wasn't wearing a helmet I'd be wearing a cap everyday to protect my dome from the sun. Caps under the helmet just don't look as cool unless it's pissing down rain.
@Brett
Genius
This article tempts me to make a motion to abolish Rule 22 for the simple fact that we can reclaim the cycling cap and restore it to its proper place in the peloton. And I hate to state whats been said, written, proclaimed,and decreed before but nobody in a kit ever as nor ever will look as rad as Eddy Merckx. That fucker won the race before he even got on his bike.
This was one of the lowest points of TdF podium history -
Seriously. Just look at the photo at the top of the page. Arms raised with the trophy and the flowers and yes, the cap. But most importantly the smirk that says "Of COURSE I won. What else did you think was gonna happen?" The cap just sets off the cool and style of the self-aware badass.
@Marko I have to say, I was feeling the same sentiment after reading Frank's article. It's almost like we've retreated into a defensive position, like a conquered people, and allowed a bunch of douchebags to rip off one of our central badges of honor.
It's like hanging out on the beach and watching some muscle-bound douchebag kick sand in your face and steal away your girlfriend, so you have to make a "rule" that you're no longer going to take a girlfriend to the beach..
I LOVE cycling caps, especially vintage ones, and because I am on the bike multiple times everyday and the weather in san francisco often sucks, I wear mine frequently, even off the bike (as long as I have the bike nearby), because it harkens back to the Golden Age and brands me as a "cyclist."
In general I hate baseball caps, look shitty in them, and find it appalling, the trend to wear them on the podium these days...
Perhaps there is a way to reclaim the cycling cap?? I don't associate with hipsters, so I don't know what kind of caps they wear or how they wear them, but maybe, somehow, a subtle distinction can be carved out for those "in the know."