Better late than never

S - 10,600 yards
B - 222.3 miles
R - 39 miles

Time - 19.53 hours

Rule # 17: Team Kit is for members of the Team
Wearing Pro Team kit is also questionable if you're not paid to wear it. If you must fly the colors of Pro teams, all garments should match perfectly, i.e. no Mapei jersey with Kelme shorts and Telekom socks.


Most people won't even recognize the names of the teams listed there as their cycling fan-dom is too new and annoying.  This rule is flagrantly violated by many people.  It's actually one of the ways in which serious athletes mark and then subsequently make fun of the less serious athletes.  Well, maybe "serious" isn't the best description.  How about ignorant?  That works.

Need I say more?

There are some exceptions to this rule in my book: old school jerseys are now cool to wear again.  Items like Mapei, T-Mobile, and others are acceptable these days.  Because when you have something like that, more likely than not your are a discerning cyclist.  You don't just buy some jersey that you see on TV in July and think you're cool; it's like buying a '63 Corvette Stingray split-window versus a BMW 3 series.  Sure, they're both fast and functional but one is steeped in history and bad-assery while the other is a good car that is way too ubiquitous to be cool.  The moral of the story is: don't wear Team Discovery Channel, Team Radio Shack, Team BMC, Garmin-Cervelo, HTC, etc and expect to be taken seriously.  It ain't gonna happen.

Rule #26: Shorts and socks should be like Goldilocks.
Not too long and not too short.  No socks is a no-no, as are those ankle length ones that should only be worn by female tennis players.

Tom Boonen is a perfect model for most things.  Except for his coke habit.

This one is staggeringly, maliciously, ignorantly, amusingly abused.  Here's one simple rule that basically says everything you need to know about socks (which is the area in which my main grief lies): ride in cycling socks, run in running socks.  No, triathlon socks do not count as either (unless you are racing; therein lies the exception to the rule).  Cycling socks should be longer than 4" (although it depends on your size, they MUST go up past the ankle, however) and running socks should be shorter than your ankles.  Period.

On a different tangent, Augusta 70.3 is this weekend! Should be fun.  Some stiff comp there, as Kenneth will make his half-ironman debut, Tom Clifford from Wilmington (recently ran a 1:14 at Steelhead), and Jeremy Sipos will also be racing.  Plus others I'm sure I don't know about.  My goal is simply to do the best that I can, no chasing times, only going as hard as possible for a touch over 4 hours...