Aesthetics have always played a major role in my quest to become a better athlete. On the surface, this may seem a ridiculously vain assertion, but for me, the reality is that looking like a pro makes me feel like a pro, and when I feel like a pro, I’m motivated to ride like a pro. After all, the mind controls the body, and if the mind believes something, it can shove it right down your body’s throat. This phenomenon plays a big part of why I love riding in weather that merits knee warmers, cycling caps, and shoe covers; when my head drops down in a swoon of agony, the sight of my flahute-looking legs and feet, framed by the water dripping from the brim of my cycling cap helps me find the motivation to lift the pace a bit more.
Central to this quest of looking Pro is the ability to look good when you place objects on your head, like helmets or cycling caps*. It’s actually quite easy to look good in these things, provided you follow a simple set of guidelines, known as The Three-Point System. Many people simply plop a piece of head wear on their heads without regard for how it is positioned on their orb-like noggins, and with little appreciation of how entirely idiotic it might make them look. Seemingly innocent mistakes such as placing it askew or tilted backward being the most common breaches of good taste, the most egregious allowing hair to be visible between the forehead and said head wear.
The Three-Point system was devised out of necessity when I was in high school on the Nordic ski team. A ski hat being perhaps the most difficult hat to look good in, my fellow teammates would commonly pull theirs down over their head to cover their ears, and would happily go about their business completely unaware that they looked as though they had an unfortunate encounter with a large woolen and overripe fruit. Through an iterative process of counseling and advising them on what adjustments to make to position the hat correctly, I stumbled upon this standardization which seems to almost universally yield Awesome results.
There are three main contact points on the head that contribute to looking fantastic while wearing something fundamentally ugly on your head: the eyebrows, the tips of the ears, and the nape of the neck. (In this case, the nape is referred to as the point where the skull meets the neck, not the hairline.)
Point 1: The Eyebrows. Your forehead is your enemy when it comes to looking cool in hats or helmets. You know who rides around with a big swath of exposed frontal cranium? The guy in the YJA, riding in the Sit Up and Beg Position, that’s who. Keep this gap to a minimum at all times; helmets and backwards cycling caps should be worn close to the eyebrows and expose no more than a centimeter of forehead, as demonstrated by Der Kaiser and Il Priata. A forwards-facing cycling cap should have the lowest point of the brim intersect with the horizontal line connecting both eyebrows, as demonstrated by the late Franco Ballerini.
Point 2: The Ears. Consider the ears the pivot point of your head wear. Keep your shit level and close to the ears; helmets and caps are to be worn just above the ear, winter hats should cover just the tips of your ear.
Point 3: The Nape of the Neck. Under no circumstances – ever, no matter what – is any part of your head wear to wander down below this threshold. EVER. With modern helmets, the cranial locking mechanism should secure around this part of your melon; a cycling cap or ski hat should flirt with the upper reaches of this area.
As if you needed any further convincing, I leave you with some examples of the proper execution of the Three-Point system, along with some tragic failures.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Three Point System/”/]
*Obviously, this is only applicable within the parameters as laid out by Rule #22.
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@sgt
Brilliant work. It begs a follow up question to our recent exchange: Do you shave your Wilier?
@sgt
I discovered today that hairy legs really itch under thermal lycra if you get just a bit warm. I'm still waiting until I'm two months from racing weight to shave but I did shave for 15 years, that's why I never knew about that itching under thermal lycra thing.
@Nate
Oh, very good. What would happen if Giant and Willier merged? (Sorry ...)
Brilliant! Great post, Frank...
Good post, and discussion.
I like the analogy to Nordic Ski headgear, where the rule in my tribe in Vermont was always that the edge of your hat must be perfectly horizontal, making a line from the top of your eyebrows, over your ear to the nape of your neck. No forehead exposure at all, and the back of your neck totally exposed. This gives a sort of winter version of Indurain with his cap at the front of his head. In very cold temperatures, the ears were to be covered by thin black felt earmuffs, but under no circumstances do you pull your hat down in the back. I have tried the earmuffs when cycling, but they really don't work under a helmet.
As far as shaving goes, there is also the 'it helps my soigneur give me better massages' reason, but for those of us who don't get massages every day, it's really about recognition by the tribe.
@Ron
Sorry to shout out for Icebreaker again, but they make a thin merino beanie which goes just fine under a helmet but keeps your head warm without overheating. Have been perfectly happy riding with it in zero Celsius. Dunno about lower than that though - Wellington doesn't freeze.
@Ron
Regret to invoke Rule 5, but I'm still in a cycling cap under the helmet in those kinds of temperatures here at the moment. This has the added advantage of chilling the tips of your lobes sufficiently that you can just break them off and sew them back on at the end of the ride, thereby eliminating the aesthetic distress of this less than ideal body part. But I guess that type-casts me.
Am waiting on a V LS jersey before jumping on a new pair of winter gloves. Any recommendations?
But of course! Shaving makes the Wilier look bigger...
@Ron
I use the woolen winter cap that you're describing here, with the ear flaps (it's really not ear flaps but a whole section that folds down on the back half of the cap.
It used to be really hard to get them to fit under a helmet, but now since they've been making helmets with the adjustable cranial locking mechanisms, it's been way mo' bettah and easy to make it work - but it definitely is less comfortable and secure than no caps at all.
That particular cap is a very challenging beast to make look good when the helmet comes off. The key is to make sure the flap is only down when under the helmet, and make sure it's not pulled down tight over the skull.
BTW, that's really the core to the Three-Point system; you don't want the hat to be tightly pulled down, ever. The only hats/caps that should ever be tightly pulled down over the skull are swim caps and the nordic racing cap, but even then, they largely follow the protocol laid out here.
@Fredrik
Thanks mate; this whole system was originally devised for Nordic skiing; I kept watching videos of my heros in Norway and Sweden and noticing that they looked cool, while we all looked like tools. And - YES - the earmuffs are not permitted to alter the line of the hat at all. I would argue that the reason for employing the earmuff is to avoid altering the line.
@Steampunk
I'm with you, man. I don't deploy the ear-covering gear until it's below 20F at least. My ears just don't get cold, and the offset of how much less comfortable the full winter cap is makes it worthwhile for me to stick with the cotton cap until it's really too cold.
That said, my VMH gets bad headaches from having cold ears, so she's rockin' the ear coverage pretty early on, maybe around 40F or so.