08 July 2007

A bib short retrospective...

Today was cleaning day. OK, more like throwing away day. I went into the hopper of cycling clothes and tossed out all of my old bib shorts. How many you might ask could he have leftover? I tossed 10 pairs of bib shorts today. Yes, 10. This leaves me with 6 pairs left, but unfortunately, many of those are now aging, and they are going to need to go as well, soon enough. Which means, for the first time since 1999 I do not have a single pair of Cycles de Oro bib shorts. I hope they find those damn Columbian rebels that hijacked our team clothes somewhere in the hills of Columbia, but so far, we have seen nothing.

The first pair (I won't show you all 7 pair that I threw away) are the Cycles de Oro bibs. Now, these are good shorts. Louis Garneau makes a fairly decent pair of bibs I've got to say. These lasted quite some time, but alas, these, and their 6 brothers, have got to go. Mostly because the lycra in them is cheap, and it wears out quickly, and becomes what I'd like to call transparent, and believe me, if you're riding behind me, the last thing you are going to want to see is my hairy ass through said shorts. It so disturbed Ryan Trebon in one race, that he couldn't help but continue to stare. Apparently, my ass hair is hypnotic or something like that. In the second picture of the same pair of bibs, you can easily see the light through the shorts themselves. Which is why they needed to go. The lycra, once again, wears out, and you're left with one see through pair of shorts. That's just not good for business.

Pair number 2 that went into the trash can were the good old dependable Domo Farm Frites bibs that I got somewhere along the line one year for training bibs. Yes, I was a team kit Fred at one point in time, OK, several points in time as we'll see as we move along memory lane and all. But these were damn good shorts, and they held up well. I think I rode these for a couple of seasons, like a couple of high mileage type seasons, and they were comfortable, almost ridiculously comfortable. I don't know why, maybe they just fit to my bottom nicely, but they did the job. A couple of years ago, they went into a deep dark drawer, and were never seen again, until today, cleaning out day, throwing away day. Sorry Johan Musseuw, but these bad boys need to go. How long has it been since there even was a Domo Farm Frites team anyway? It's been quite awhile now. And when the chamois is chafing and has come undone from the shorts themselves, they no longer remain comfortable. Thanks for the memories Domo, time to go. 

Somewhere I picked up this pair of Marlux shorts. I think these were a purchase off of probikekit.com, because they used to actually have good deals (not any longer), where you could get some team shorts, and if like me, you didn't mind looking like an idiot, you could get some decent cheap shorts. Again, for training. This way, I didn't have to worry about wearing out the team bibs, when I could wear other bibs instead. These shorts pretty much looked like something threw up on them. There is a lot of color going on here, and a lot of busy-ness happening with the shorts. I don't know what I was thinking on this one, but hey, they were probably like $40 or so, and when and where can you get a pair of bibs for $40 that last a couple of years? Yeah, nowhere, that's where chief. I had to toss these because once again, we had chamois short separation. This is never good when this happens, and you end up getting some bad chafe if you wear a pair with chamois separation. 

Next on the hit parade, what I like to call vintage team CSC shorts. Yes, I had a pair of these mostly because Ja-Ja wore a similar pair one year, and let's face it, that doping son of a bitch could ride him some bikes. I do see now that he's made the change to triathlons, and actually finished like in the top 30 or something like that in his first Ironman race. Not bad for a skinny bad skinned Frenchman. I wonder what kind of doping products he's doing now? I know, this is being cynical of me and all, but he was wrapped up in a lot of good doping teams in the past, so it's not a stretch to think that maybe, just maybe, he was doing something like that as well. Hmm? Maybe? Anyway, these shorts, as you might be able to see, had a white side panel. At the time, I thought that hey, this might be cool. Then in hindsight, once again, being the hairy bastard that I am, white anything when it comes to shorts is a B-A-D idea. They served their purpose though once again, and were Castelli, so they weren't a bad brand of shorts at all. The chamois, comfy. The material, not bad. The one gripe that I had about these shorts though was that the little scorpion logo that comes on Castelli products came off about a week after I got them. Again, cheap shorts though, so I can't complain too much.

I lined up my Cycles de Oro team shorts on the bed for a "team picture" before they got tossed into the can. You can see from the layout, that I have been riding for the same team for quite some time now. Yes, I have been riding for De Oro since moving down to North Carolina in 1999. I've got to say, it's been good times for sure. I've met some really good people, and have seen some really good racers move through our team. Chris Foster, Rich Harper, Chad Gibson, Candice Blickem, and even Joey D'Antoni were all fairly strong local area riders, and at least a couple of these folks went on to race pro, at least for a little while and all. Harper is still killing it with Abercrombie and Fitch cycling team, with his teammate winning or leading the US crit series right now. Joey, after serving a 2 year suspension for doping is back on the bike. Candice, taking a year off to have a baby and all. Anyway, the last lineup for the team shorts before they go into the can.

And, last but not least...

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2 Comments:

At 12:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ugh. so depressing.

 
At 5:25 PM, Blogger Joe Hell said...

Tree Trimmer: Now that's a real shame when folks be throwin' away a perfectly good white boy like that.

 

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