In Memoriam: The Cycling Cap
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.
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.”
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.
@Steampunk A friend of mine pointed that out to me recently: they are derivative, lacking in creativity – they just take from the past and then try to re-work it to satisfy their ennui by being all ironic-like about it… it really says quite a bit about that bunch. Fuck ’em, Dude…I’m wearing my cycling cap.
I’ve been wearing cycling caps since 1973, when I started racing. I went from category 4 to Category 1 in six months. I still race, and am number two in the nation in my age group for stage racing (60+). I always wear a cycling cap, especially on the podium! There simply isn’t any other acceptable way. Period.
@ cyclops:…”Besides it looked way bitchin’ to have the mane flowing in the wind”
As a balding middle-aged guy, those days are long gone for me…. but take a look at this video, and look at how awesome those jackets look “flowing in the wind”…..
http://www.raphacondor.cc/news/with-paul-smith-at-the-velodrome
@Collin, Hipster jeans do indeed stretch. This is mostly kept a secret.
Just discovered this site and have been on for about four hours, which is worth about $400.00 of no work being completed. I look forward to losing many more dollars this way. Thanks.
@Hitchhiker Welcome aboard — it’s a great way to not get work accomplished.
Like Hitchhiker I’ve recently discovered the site. Been lurking for a couple of weeks.
Thank god fall is here and Rule #21 allows me to wear a cycling cap on every ride. I’m not going to let no stinking hipsters ruin this icon of the sport for me.
Now if we can just get the pros to ditch the baseball cap.
@hitchhiker… Conference call + mute button + velominati.com = bike porn heaven 1 productivity 0
@roadslave
This site produces heavy breathing on your end of the line, hmm?
Frank, great post and photos.
I’ve also been lurking for a while, and while it’s not ideal to start out dissenting…
Hipsters have gotten into cycling caps for exactly the reasons outlined above: they rule.
While a great many kids are ignorant of the lineage and cultural cachet afforded by cycling caps, a large number are. Is there room for the argument that substance in this case will follow style, and the wholesale appropriation of cycling fashion will in fact lead to actual cyclists?
Personally, a year ago, having owned a bike for all of two months, I watched A Sunday in Hell for the first time, and promptly bought a Flandria cap. At some point during the concentrated hours of reading; listening and watching that accompany any first bloom of obsession (many of them lurking right here) I realized precisely why I shouldn’t be wearing it. It’s my bet that plenty of folks who are attracted by the very aesthetics that this community champions wind up getting into the sport in a huge way.
@Brett, nice to meet you the other day, and thanks again for the bargain on the cassette. That Bosomworth looks sweet, can’t wait to see the progress.
@Keepers, great site, keep it up.
Frank, I think you underestimate the utility of the cap in today’s compulsory-helmet world. Having a little less hair than I would like (on my head that is) I use a cap on every ride, except where something warmer is required. Why you ask?
1. Bald bastards get a lot more sweat rolling onto their face than our more hirsute brethren. The alternative is a headband or a bandana? I think not – there is no alternative.
2. The “red chessboard head” isn’t a look I am after – hence on sunny days a cap under a helmet is required.
Peak forward at all times of course.
On a separate point, whilst bike caps are cool, I like to think there is a legitimate reason that “podium caps” have come into being. Just like the longer length shorts which are now de rigeur, I believe podium caps are used because they more visibly display sponsors names and logos than a little cloth number. And as the sport that we love has always been inextricably tied to the pursuit of the dollar, I don’t mind them.
Under the circumstances, it’s worth asking:
While Rule #16 & 17 are pretty clear about the doucheyness of wearing team and championship jerseys when not paid to do so, is the cap a safe/appropriate way to suggest allegiance/nostalgia?
@all
Great to come back and read all the posts from everyone; really great stuff.
@CJ
You’re just lucky the conversation between you and Brett didn’t happen earlier, because he well could have shat in your hat.
@Marcus
The first half of your comment is awesome, the second half sucks. Besides, the visor has no logos on it, generally, and the rest of the cap is about as big as the cycling cap. That, and the cycling cap usually has a sponsor on the visor, which – as Merckx demos in the main photo – can be flipped up and looks fuckin’ rad.
I’ve lamented the “positives” of the Fixie Revolution before. I mean, I think all of us want to see more people on the bike. What kills me is the cheapening of the history, and that’s what this is about.
@CJ Well, that’s just your path to La Vie Velominatus. We love that; appreciate it, and embrace it. We all have our own paths to The Great Truth, and we must all find it by our own hearts. A guy who sits indoors with sunglasses on and cycling cap while flicking off a computer is, in my estimation, not like to follow in your footsteps. Those are the fuckwaffles we’re concerned about.
@roadslave
You bring a tear to mine eye.
@Steampunk
It depends, are you suggesting that you wear the cap off the bike? On the bike, I would argue that if it meet the aesthetics of the wearer, it should be OK.
@all
I submit this in consideration of the Hipster Fuckknuckles and Rule #22:
Take the power back | RATM
Uploaded by _BigUpRouya_. – See the latest featured music videos.
Cycling caps rock – important symbol of being a cyclist. Yeah, the fixie hipster crowd has diluted that fact a bit, but who cares – cycling caps still rock.
I never wear one off the bike, not because of any “rules”, but because I look like a dork. Some people can pull off the look, others can’t. I can’t.
I do wear a cap often under my helmet. It’s comfortable and face it, who doesn’t feel a tad pro with a proper cycling cap under a quality helmet.
Let me ask you gentlemen of the Pacific Northwest and other rainy regions, does a cotton cycling cap under your helmet keep you warm at all in the rain or does it become a cold wet wick for the wind to freeze your brains with?
@CJ
Welcome mate, hopefully the other Welly lurkers I’ve met in the last week will follow your lead.
@Marcus
Like this?
@michael
Michael,
A reply from the rainy English South West.
Yes.
If you’re out in the cold, driving rain you’re going to be laying down some V (the shape of the water parting from your front wheel…coincidence?).
Your brain will be so busy thinking about how awesome it is to be enjoying such a V opportunity that it will create quite enough heat to make your cap steam.
If you are worried that this won’t work for you and that the beer in your bidon won’t keep you happy, you’ll find a hip flask of whisky, sloe tuica etc. fits in your jersey pocket very nicely.
Please do not wear a beanie, or other wool hat.
@frank
No: not off the bike, but even on it there’s some question about appropriate jersey wear. I’m just wondering if there’s more of a free pass with the cap””whether world champion stripes on the cap are permissible, because it recognizes the rich history of cycling and what those stripes represent. Or an old Monteni cap as shown above, or Flandria, etc.
Upcoming feature will be photographing “The V” where it presents itself. Chapeau for being the first of the community to arrive at this.
@Steampunk
I think there’s a free pass there. We gotta show our loyalties here somewhere, right?
@all
My favorite look is the cap under the helmet, any time the weather permits, I’ve got a cap on:
I’m just going to say this: What hipsters? I see no hipsters. Why talk about hipsters who are not there?
Loving the article, pictures and comments. Makes this a good place to visit.
I am a big fan of the cap, so a most enjoyable read.
@Robot
Have you been to LA recently? Or Boston? Or Ann Arbor? Or College-Town, USA? They are out there, and they are clueless.
Forgive me if this link has been posted elsewhere. This two-part film is a perfect match for so much on this site. Go to You Tube and type in Vive le Tour. 20 minutes of 1962 Tour magic in stupendous, sharp color. Wool jerseys, raids on cafes, Rik van Looy in pain, bandages held in place by cotton caps, insane descents, Anquetil, Darrigade et al, – it’s all there. Heartbreaking footage of a rider riding to the point of unconsciousness. Today’s guys are tough, these guys were tougher. One of the best bits of retro film I’ve ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vive+le+tour&aq=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3EHJjHP6yc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B6ZycaBelU
@Collin
Robot has a special kinds of eyes.
Oddly I find that most people who denigrate the humble hipster seems merely to be envious of them. Whether it is there ability to rock skinny jeans and a jauntily place hat/cap or pulling some new-fangled fixie-trick*, it is envy that drives people to call them clueless. Just like there are fucknuggets in the road cycling world and the MTB world as well as the real world.
I can ride a fixie without falling off and I can pull some (very) minor tricks on an MTB (even a road bike at a push). What I can’t do is pull any sort of trick on a fixie – not even riding backwards. Those who can are fairly fucking good riders.
I am going to buy a load of cycling caps and wear than all the time from now on
@Jarvis
Very true Jarvis. There are hipsters that are extremely skilled riders, but I don’t find them to be the majority. I think it is the disregard for the rules of the road that is their cachet that really bothers me. An attitude like, “We are not cars so why drive like them. It would be completely inefficient*,” does all of us on bicycles a disservice.
We are all part of the brotherhood on the road. The more people that ride bicycles the better. If everybody rode, this world would be a better place. I tip my head to every rider I pass or see while riding, whether they’re rocking a squeaky beach cruiser or a carbon-fiber wonder, because the freedom of making pedals go in circles is a beautiful thing.
* Actual quote from a recent email discussion, which is completely moot because it is even more inefficient for cars to stop at lights.
@Jarvis I have spent many a fine evening lounging in Dolores Park in San Francisco, observing Homo Sapien Hipstericus in their natural environment. I will speak for myself in saying that I have exactly 0% envy (and I could rock skinny jeans if i felt compelled to), but I don’t go overboard denigrating them either. They seem rather self-involved and seem to enjoy finding a sense of Self and meaning in life by recycling things from the past – ok by me. I have nothing in common with them, and we may as well be from different star systems (likely we are).
That said, perhaps we are all overdoing this cycling cap thing?? I mean who really gives a shit if hipsters wear cycling caps, really? It doesn’t stop me from wearing them. No one in their right mind would ever mix me up – the dude in the lycra bibs and the wool vintage jersey on the fancy ass steel road bike with a hipster on a fixie. For all practical purposes, they are invisible to me and I do as I damned well please.
Whenever I am on my bike (unless it’s hot, which is rare), I wear my cap, and I often wear it off the bike, if I am in transit somewhere on the bike, have finished and am still in cleats or kit, or just hanging out with my bike somewhere like an outdoor cafe. They’re the only hats I can actually wear, oddly enough (i look stupid in baseball hats, etc). Why don’t we just wear our caps when and where we want and stop giving away one of our cherished cultural icons to the damned hipsters?
Bottom Line: NO Velominatus should ever be confused with a hipster anyway. We are cyclists and should proudly own our tradition regardless of what is trendy in certain impermanent sub cultures.
I am wondering whether Rule #22 might need an adjustment or amendment. It seems like so much of our concern about our caps and when we should wear them is a “reaction” to them. Why are we reacting to them? It’s our icon.
I say we own ours and stop fretting like a bunch of old English ladies about whether we are committing some cosmic faux pas if we wear a cap into a cafe. The V should trump #22. They can pry my cycling cap from my cold, dead hands…
You wanna talk caps? Oli’s the man for caps…
I thought the hipster issue had less to do with hipsters wearing caps while riding or the nature of their bikes, but rather the ubiquitous breach of Rule #22, which cheapened the cap-wearing experience.