What a kerfuffle. Jonas Vingegaard‘s sartorial faux pas yesterday appears to have grown wings of epic proportions and morphed into memes, stories and more memes that we will probably still be talking about in this December’s Season Review pieces.
I could imagine less fuss being made if Leonardo DiCaprio arrived at the Oscars with his underpants on the outside, but hey, welcome to cycling.
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Smiling sheepishly afterwards, he explained that it wasn’t part of any bold new look – more the fact that the racing had been so full-on that he hadn’t had a chance to remove them. Too late. The internet was already on fire.
James Shrubsall
Having been at Cycling Weekly for over two decades, and cycling a little bit longer, James is in a good position to tell you what’s good and what isn’t in the world of bike riding.
On the one hand, it is understandable. After all, if one of the world’s top racers, with access to an almost unlimited wardrobe of Hollywood proportions, can’t get it right, who can? But on the other hand, is it time cycling toned down its obsession with the perfect look?
What does it say that, from one of the most memorable day’s racing of the season, where the weather was disgusting, major riders decking it like skittles and Tadej Pogačar’s biggest rival showing a touch of brilliant, our biggest takeaway is his wardrobe malfunction.
There’s no hand-wringing involved in taking this viewpoint. After all, Vingegaard‘s Steptoe & Son turn was pretty funny and he thought so too. But I find the whole ‘style above all’ obsession is so alien. (My friends and family, familiar with my extensive collection of ageing garments, will be nodding sagely at this point).
But… take the whole Velominati thing. Tongue in cheek or not, a lot of people swore by that book of cycling rules (many of which were style-related), and some probably still do. But the last time I wore my cycling shades on the outside of my helmet straps they fell off and nearly got run over by a car. Sock length, perfectly matched kit all the time, every time… the list is extensive. Life, I feel, is way too short for such trivialities.
It is no doubt all added to by the sumptuous kit launches we see each year by the pro teams, which have become a major and multi-layered branding exercise. The hastily-grabbed snapshot of a rider looking slightly awkward and entirely unprepared is no longer the way of introducing new team attire to the world.
Perhaps my own attitude stems from my earliest forays into cycling with the local CTC group (yes, I realise they do get mentioned here a fair bit): today in wet weather everyone wears the Gabba uniform – back then it was capes that stretched all the way over the handlebars and were perfectly matched to… not a damn thing. And no one was any less happy or fulfilled for it.
Of course, Vingegaard isn’t the first pro whose attire has missed the mark. Mario Cipollini had the sort of provocative wardrobe that would have made a Milan catwalk designer blanche and while it was occasionally worked it usually left people either scratching their heads or pulling the sort of face usually reserved for very bad smells.
What about AG2R La Mondiale’s brown shorts? They ploughed a brave and questionable furrow through the peloton for more than 10 years. Even back in the 1980s when racing bikes were universally beautiful with lithe steel frames dripping with polished alloy components, the French Castorama team had the temerity to dress its riders in workman’s dungarees – or at least a kit designed to look like them.
We should definitely all keep having fun with this stuff – cycling would be an awfully serious sport without it. But equally, let’s remember it’s not just style – as Vingegaard showed us yesterday it’s substance too, dodgy bibs or not.
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