Protocol in a Port-of-Call
Oct. 13th, 2007 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ornoth_cyclingBicycling has certain protocols. One of them is that you don’t wear team kit unless you are being paid to weat it, or can at least hammer faster than anyone else in the vicinity. Anything less would be incredbily gauche. Picture a 275-pound flab-gator tooling around, sweating profusely at 13 mph on the flat, piloting a replica of Lance’s bike, wearing Lance’s team jersey. Tack-ay. But sadly far too common.
That goes eightfold for the yellow jersey: the symbol of leadership in the Tour de France. Any cyclist who can wear the yellow jersey for real, that is the best day of his entire life, without exception. People devote their entire professional lives to earning that right. Whole squads of people devote their lives just to have the opportunity to indirectly help someone else earn that right. In the past century, only 261 people have earned the right to wear a yellow jersey.
So you can imagine how massive a faux pas it is for a weekend hacker to put on a replica yellow jersey. It’s like showing off your (replica) Nobel Prize for Literature when you’re not even professionally published. It’s like proudly displaying your “Olympic Gold” at work, when in reality the closest you’ve come to the Olympics was spending one Saturday laughing when Olympic curling was on television a few years back.
Wearing a replica maillot jaune is the single biggest act of hubris a cyclist can conceive of.
So you can see where this is going. Recently some blithering idiot showed up for our group ride in a replica Tour de France leader’s jersey. A woman. Wearing sneakers, rather than cycling shoes. Who felt the ideal accessory for the maillot jaune was a big ole fanny pack. On a cheap department store flat-bar bike. With reflectors and a kick-stand, for Christ’s sake!!!
Now sure, you can mark all that down to ignorance, but that’s some absolutely amazingly superlative kind of ignorance, unabashedly paraded out in public in a way that just demanded to be noticed. That’s much worse than nine-months-pregnant-in-your-wedding-dress level stuff.
Folks, don’t do stuff like that. Please! You’ll get spat out the back of the ride like a wad of stale chaw, and be left behind, alone on the open road but for the echoing laughter your offensive hubris earned.
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Date: 2007-10-13 07:14 pm (UTC)BTW, what does being a woman have to do with it?
And because she hasn't spent $3k on a bike and $100 on cycling shoes and another $100 on clipless pedals, and hasn't taken the kickstand and reflectors off to get more speed, she's worse off for it?
I've never owned cycling shoes, and my crappy $300 bike store bike had reflectors and a kickstand. I bought jerseys for the 3rd and 4th AIDS ride, even though I only rode in the 6th one, because they were cheap, and in colors I liked. And yet, you were OK to ride with me -- even though I am a woman.
She's going to be left behind because your group ride isn't really open to newbies, no matter what the official policy says. Your disdain for her shows that. How about some compassion, or feeling embarassed for her? Or how about the knowledge that perhaps buying the replica sent more money to a cancer charity than a rubber bracelet would have? She's trying to show she's supportive. If her car had a bumper sticker that said, "My other car is a bicycle" would you make fun of her too?
So what you're saying is, before one goes for a group ride, one should spend thousands of dollars on equipment and somehow magically know that bicycling, unlike any other sport, looks down on people who buy replica jerseys to show support? Or perhaps it's like every other sport, and you (and perhaps others who sniggered with you) are being elitist?
How different would you have felt if she averaged 18 mph and kicked ass and led the line in the ride?
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Date: 2007-10-13 08:10 pm (UTC)I'm a woman with a midrange bike, sneakers (clip pedals), a lot of endurance and very little speed. And I'm completely with
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Date: 2007-10-14 07:27 am (UTC)If it's so hubristic, why are yellow jerseys sold?
Replica World Series rings aren't sold with as great availability as Red Sox jerseys (they might be sold, but they're thousands of dollars and out of the grasp of ordinary fans). Is it hubristic for me to wear a "Ramirez" jersey even though I haven't earned it? Or even a generic Red Sox jersey when I obviously haven't earned it, since I'm not on the team?
And I completely object -- the woman could have been on the crew or a supporting team member that was a big factor in helping a Tour-de-Francer win.
Still, I've done all of the above, if you swap a yellow jersey with a jersey from a ride I didn't actually do, and I've done it while riding with
And I'd hope that if I did something very ignorant as a newbie rider, someone would have compassion for me and take me aside and let me know I committed a major faux pas. Because it's likely this woman was trying to show her spirit and passion for cycling, and instead she probably got snubbed by a bunch of arrogant men who go 18 mph and someone grudgingly stays behind with or waits for the slow newbie. I've been there (did one ride with CRW), and it sucks.
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Date: 2007-10-14 11:57 am (UTC)Other sports seem to have other cultures surrounding their jerseys. In baseball, it's OK to wear those, and it just signifies that you're a fan. Cycling has a different culture, and it's not OK. Why this is the case, I don't know, but it is, and somehow it seems obvious and correct to me as I watch the TdF.
Helping someone win doesn't get you a yellow jersey. All kinds of Postal Service riders never got a yellow, even though Lance would be the first to tell you he couldn't have done it without them. She could be the world's most awesome directeur sportif and she still didn't earn a yellow.
I note that it is entirely possible that
And yup, CRW abandoned me on top of a mountain. They suck.
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Date: 2007-10-14 12:33 pm (UTC)I never said
You're also not addressing the fact that a person new to the bicycling community isn't going to know this. Heck, I didn't know that wearing a yellow jersey is a no-no, and I don't think folks would call me a newbie. If you're wondering why I'm so adamant about this, it's because I can see myself in this woman's shoes (literally doing everything she did, sans fanny pack).
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Date: 2007-10-24 01:25 am (UTC)> he gets to rant here. Plenty of people put on a nice face when things are
> driving them crazy, and then use LJ to express how they actually feel. I
> dunno, maybe he was a jerk about it, but you can't assume that from this
> post.
This is pretty accurate. I knew the post was jerky, which is why I held off posting it, but when I went back to clean out my "pending posts" folder, I decided I'd put it up anyways, despite it being snarky.
I certainly have the capability to be snarky. Judgmentalism is arguably my biggest fault, and although I've toned it down a lot lately, sometimes it still wants to be vented, as it did in this case. I appreciate your understanding.
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Date: 2007-10-24 01:24 am (UTC)Damn good question. I have no idea. Actually, I've never seen them sold, except by the TdF organization itself perhaps.
Naturally, there's lots of cyclists who go see the TdF and ride some of the route. I wonder how many -- if any -- of them get -- and wear -- replica jerseys.
> Is it hubristic for me to wear a
> "Ramirez" jersey even though I haven't earned it? Or even a generic Red
> Sox jersey when I obviously haven't earned it, since I'm not on the team?
I think it is *if* you are wearing it while playing baseball. Now, it's not *very* hubristic, so that would compare more to wearing team kit, which is mildly hubristic as opposed to the yellow jersey.
> And I'd hope that if I did something very ignorant as a newbie rider,
> someone would have compassion for me and take me aside and let me know I
> committed a major faux pas.
This is definitely a valid point. I didn't do so myself because... well, I didn't really have the opportunity to talk to her myself. Someone might talk to her about it, or maybe not. I am probably more sensitive to the faux pas aspect of it than most. I wouldn't claim that my attitude is typical or shared by any particular individual or group.
> I've been there (did one
> ride with CRW), and it sucks.
I find it interesting that the two of you both have CRW horror stories. I did the CttC once, and didn't really pay much attention to the support. I think they also do the New Years Day ride, which I've done two or three times, and I'll agree that one's not well planned and usually pretty much just chaos. But for the most part, CRW doesn't come far enough east for me, so I haven't much personal experience with them.
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Date: 2007-10-24 01:23 am (UTC)> it is breathtakingly hubristic.
Thanks. The reason why I didn't post this rant originally (I recently went back and posted some stuff that I'd accumulated but never sent) is because I didn't think I got the point across well, so thank you for helping clarify.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-24 01:22 am (UTC)> wearing their favorite sports jersey that has a name on their back.
You might convince me of that. But isn't wearing a Conseco or Gretzkey jersey while actually playing the game a bit presumptuous?
> BTW, what does being a woman have to do with it?
Well, women can't compete in the TdF, nor earn its yellow jersey. Although there is the Grande Boucle Feminin, which has its own yellow jersey, women's cycling has yet to achieve the same parity of competition and interest as sports such as tennis.
> And because she hasn't spent $3k on a bike and $100 on cycling shoes and
> another $100 on clipless pedals, and hasn't taken the kickstand and
> reflectors off to get more speed, she's worse off for it?
Naw, that's her choice. But to wear the garb reserved for the best professional cyclist on the planet with a fanny pack and a kickstand is as clashing an image as one could produce.
> She's going to be left behind because your group ride isn't really open
> to newbies, no matter what the official policy says. Your disdain for her
Here you've gone off on your own path of conjecture, and you're just wrong. I would argue that the group I ride with is singularly accommodating. We regularly get thirty to fifty riders, with a handful of new riders each week. We've encouraged and trained several hundred charity riders, and have a substantial ratio of women. In order to accommodate riders of varying levels, the ride usually breaks up into several sub-groups which self-select based on how fast and how far people want to go. The group has been written about in local newspapers and regional cycling magazines. I would suggest that your conclusions about "my group ride" aren't based on anything but conjecture and judgments based on your past experience with some completely different group.
> So what you're saying is, before one goes for a group ride, one should
> spend thousands of dollars on equipment and somehow magically know that
> bicycling, unlike any other sport, looks down on people who buy replica
> jerseys to show support? Or perhaps it's like every other sport, and you
> (and perhaps others who sniggered with you) are being elitist?
I have to say, you've gone a long way on your own from my original statements. I just said that pairing a TdF yellow jersey with a fanny pack is gauche. On th eother hand, you're the one telling me what I'm saying while making your own indefensible generalizations about "how every sport is".
> How different would you have felt if she averaged 18 mph and kicked ass
> and led the line in the ride?
That would be somewhat different in some ways. Wearing team kit when one's not paid to is tacky in either case, but if one can hammer with the best, then that strength earns its own respect, irrespective of what one wears.
That's for team kit. On the other hand, wearing the yellow jersey of a TdF leader is way beyond simple team kit, so the tackiness factor ratchets up proportionally. If you do something that arrogant, you're throwing down a gauntlet, and you really do need to be able to back it up.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-16 05:44 pm (UTC)