Clothing

December 30, 2009

Joe, I understand you lived in a rain cape for 6 years, but what did you use to keep your hands and feet warm/dry during all those early season days of cold rain?

Brian Ignatin - Pineville, Pennsylvania

Hands and feet? Honestly, I cannot remember because they have long succumbed to frostbite and fallen off.

Brian, it took me a really long time but eventually I wised up and fled the cold weather. This is one question that I have absolutely no answer for. I have tried any number of different kinds of shoe covers (aka booties) and gloves of every shape, kind, color and construction, to absolutely no avail. Yes, there are a ton of outstanding glove and shoe cover option available now but, for the most part, keeping your feet and hands warm has a lot to do with your own hands and feet.

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December 21, 2009

I have always personally loved the black shoes on the bike, black socks too, but as of late the euro cool thing of course is ‘white only’. I just don’t like it, haven’t adopted it, and probably won’t change it, but wonder as I look for new shoes if I should even entertain white as optional. Afterall, mavic has some primo junkie shoes in black, carbon and all. So do Sidi, so, if euro makers make them, can they be all that wrong?? I am a masters cat. racer and love the euro look otherwise, just not white shoes. Did you wear white or black during your tenure as racer??

dettoDan Johnson -  Missouri

My name is Joe and I have a shoe problem. I think you might even refer to it as flat-out craziness. I have owned (bought and been given) more cycling shoes than I can remember. I have filed, cut, heated, bent, sawed, glued and otherwise mutilated them in, pretty much, every way imaginable -- shoe mania. Imelda Marcos had nothing on me.

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December 14, 2009

Hey Joe, now that it is cross season, along with visions of “being the only one in the photo” at the end of a raining, cold early season road race, tell us about the real “Belgian Kneewarmers”. What did you use on your legs in the races or what did you see being used as embrocation in Belgium in the changing rooms. I know that the application of products on the legs is as much of the ritual of riding a Kermis as is training. Can you enlighten us?

redhotDavid A  -  Portland, Oregon

It’s funny, but actually didn’t know what “Belgian Kneewarmers” referred to until about a year ago. I guess it might be, perhaps, that as I was in the habit of putting on one or another type of embrocation gunk on the knees and legs, and that everyone else was doing the same thing, I never knew there was an American term for it.

Yes, for those of you who have never been in a dressing room immediately prior to a Belgian kermis, classic, semi-classic, or cyclocross race … the air becomes thick with the fragrance of at least a dozen different analgesic ointments. Some of these are familiar smells – a lot like that Ben Gay smell you got when you went to visit your grandparents. Some of them, on the other hand, are like nothing you have smelled before – and quite possibly could be some sort of cross between a freaky hillbilly poultice and a high desert meth lab.

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July 20, 2009

Conventional wisdom seems to be that you should always wear a base layer under the jersey, even during the summer because it helps cool down. I noticed that none of the pro rider in the tour seem to wear one. What’s your take? Is it down to personal choice?

Georges Auberger - Emerald Hills, CA

While this is really just a case of personal choice, it has a lot to do with old habits and beliefs that have been passed down through generations of cyclists. Back in the ancient times, before there were radio ear-buds pressed into the skull of each and every rider in the pro peloton, many of the fabrics that were used in jersey construction were only just slightly better than junk. You'd go uphill, sweat yourself silly, point the bike downhill and feeze to death. Cyclists, myself included, wore department store variety, wool undershirts that practically rubbed you raw, yet kept you somewhat dry.

There was also the belief that two layers would lessen the severity of road rash in a crash. I have done a fair bit of asphalt sampling but cannot honestly claim that I was ever any safer wearing a baselayer.

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