Thursday 9 June 2011

The Tours de France and Breaking the Cycle (in a good way)

Cyclists on the Tour de France race stand to wear a yellow jersey if they clock up the lowest aggregate time over the stages. Problem is yellow doesn’t go with much. Stick on your jersey with a pair of blue jeans to go out for the night, for instance, and you run the risk of looking something like your dad on holiday dressing smart for dinner.

Another problem is that all you have in terms of luggage space on a bike is a saddlebag, perhaps the smallest personal item storage system available save for the little pocket inside your jeans pocket to stick not all, but a proportion, of your change. The saddlebag offers just enough room for a spare pair of pants (trunks not boxers). Perhaps you could look into fitting a bigger saddle so you can reasonably argue for a comparatively larger saddle bag? A bench-type seat would allow a saddle bag big enough to drape one of those zip-up bags you stick your dry cleaning in (and attached sideways onto the frame, give the rider more berth when it comes to bunching up with a lot of falling off riders (sometimes onto cobblestones). (CLICK ON 'Read more' LINK, BELOW)

In theory, or otherwise, I (the author of this piece) would win all the races so I wouldn’t have to bother keeping track of my times. It just makes things easier on the maths (you know, you have to think: now I came second last time, what was my time again? Was it a worse time than that Italian bloke who came second today but first yesterday?). Then I would give the yellow jersey to the last-placed rider, somebody who’s probably trying to keep up on something like a Raleigh Chopper. This is an act comparable in the feeding-ducks-in-a park world where you try to chuck the stale bread at the cute runty one that’s too lame competing in the feeding frenzy. I would say to that cyclist, go out tonight have a good time, live it up, you know impress the birds with your garish pullover and oh, do you think I could swap you? Your top goes better with these jeans. What do you think? And you’re the one going out that night wherever all the cyclists have rocked up at the end of the last stage wearing the least sweaty upper garment because the Chopper bloke was the least exerted.

2 comments:

  1. Dear Tiny Bang when I follow rugby I wear a rugby shirt and when I follow football a football shirt. The same is not true when I go horse racing. First there are a limited number of jockey shirts available in 2XL and secondly they embrace a lot of the Tour de France colours and style. The king of the mountains jockey shirt worn by myself with the arms cut off to get a decent fit. Means I am always being mistaken for a snooker fan. Add a Chopper bike to the look and I find the the people down the canal now throw bread at myself and I am there after attacked by the ducks in their feeding frenzy. Even the cute runty one. Does anyone else feel that horse racing, snooker and cycling are reckless past times ?

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  2. Editor's Reply:

    Dear Rocketman. Some interesting points. Wearing the colours of a favourite jockey does limit the size of that jockey's fanbase. I did glimpse the design of the King of the Mountains shirt on Google images upon conducting my research - red/pink polkadots on a white background. I can see why people might mistake you for a snooker fan in that the sleeveless design suggests a snooker table populated by an array of red balls, further suggesting that all of the coloured balls have been potted and not replaced. I hope you agree that this snooker scenario would be quite remarkable. Firstly, the game would be taking place on a white beize (snooker has yet to be rebranded by Kerry Packer)and secondly, the referee would have made a series of errors in not replacing the coloured balls after the potting of reds (unless of course, the shirt represents a freak of snooker type of situation where all of the coloured balls were potted by mistake in the process of just one shot, incurring a 27 point penalty).

    I think, anyway,if you're wearing a football shirt to the football, a rugby shirt to the rugby, the people who are mistaking you for a snooker fan should have been doing that on the basis of you sporting suit trousers and waistcoat with a bowtie.

    The whole idea of wearing the apparel of the players participating in the sport you follow is in fact planned to be a tiny bang theory to explore in the future. So thank you for pre-empting the discussion. With regards to the question 'does anyone feel that horse racing, snooker and cycling are reckless past times?', I would say yes if they are attempted at the same time (perhaps a predictable comment?.)

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