Bibjeans?

When I started this blog, I said it may contain things unrelated to bike racing that happen to leak out of my brain. This is just such a post.

Every year as the weather cools, I'm forced back into wearing blue jeans. I'm blessed/cursed with very narrow hips which makes it difficult to keep my jeans up. A belt helps, but really needs to be uncomfortably tight to do the job. I could try to be cool and wear my pants halfway down my butt, although that looks stupid on a teenager and exceptionally stupid on someone more than twice that age like myself.

Drawing on my cycling experience, I think I have a solution. Nearly every cyclist who has ever tried bibshorts never wears anything else on the bike. They are very comfortable and totally eliminate the chance of a gap between your jersey and your shorts. This is the inspiration for Bibjeans. Imagine, no uncomfortable waistband or overtightened belt. Just as with cycling bibs the bib material could be mesh or some other lightweight material. It's true that you wouldn't be able to tuck in your shirt, but that's not cool anyway. Maybe a modular solution with shirts that attach to the jeans could allow those who feel the need to have a shirt that tucks in to do so.

It's a long off-season, who know what other bizarre ideas I'll come up with.

Vegas memories

It's been three weeks since I got back from Interbike and I thought I'd share some miscellaneous thoughts and observations from the few days in Vegas.

Most Unique Schwag:

The compression wear company Skins was giving away these distinctive pens with the tag line "Break records legally" to hype their products.

Favorite Interbike Tradition:

My friend Tom has a tattoo of the Columbus tubing dove logo on his calf and every year he heads to the Columbus booth in search of schwag. The reaction depends on the person staffing the booth. Some year's the person doesn't care at all, but this year the guy was really impressed and had to get a picture for the folks back home. As for Tom, he got a cycling cap out of the deal.

The Coolest Things I Saw at the Show:

The Blackburn Flea headlight and taillight are really, really cool. They are very small (weighing only 17 grams), recharge off of any "flashlight" battery, and are quite bright. They also have a runtime of 3 to 6 hours. I've been using them on my road bike for the last couple weeks and have been very impressed. They may not be the type of carbon fiber or unobtanium racing technology that usually grab headlines, but they work really well and are the kind of product that would be really useful for a commuter and anything that makes it easier for people to make more trips by bike is a good thing.

Now, back to the whiz-bang racing technology. Electronic Dura-Ace struck me as one of those technologies you didn't know you needed. I didn't get a chance to try it firsthand but watching a variety of folks try it on the trainer they had set up in the Shimano booth, I was impressed with the speed and accuracy of the shifts. The front derailleur also has a slick auto-trim feature to keep the chain from rubbing when at the extremes of the freewheel. As I am usually several generations behind the times (still using 9-speed Dura-Ace), it will probably be awhile before I indulge in this technology.

That's it for my impressions of Interbike. It was fun being in Vegas again, but as always, a couple days is enough!