Protocol in a Port-of-Call

[ornoth_cycling]

Bicycling 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.

Comments

[ornoth.livejournal.com]

> If it's so hubristic, why are yellow jerseys sold?

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.