Saturday, October 25, 2008

World Cup DH MTB Fashion Police

You must be kidding me??? An immature and obviously grossly confused Rachel Atherton would rather succumb to fashion than win races. Not only that, but her dissing the skinsuit flies in the face of much bigger champions than she, Tomac, Nico, Chausson, Stiefle, HBall and of course Borat.

Her sponsors should really re-think their connection with this superficial, spoiled wanna-be.

Photo ©: Mark Gunter
UCI ban skin suits and open face helmets for some mountain bike competitions

By Matthew Cole, BikeRadar.com
Tracy Moseley rode this skin suit to a slim win in Australia


The UCI, the governing body for competitive cycling, has made some interesting changes to the rules for the 2009 season and beyond including banning the wearing of "tight-fitting clothing" and insisting that full-face helmets must be worn when racing and practising for downhill and 4X.

The wearing of skin suits has been a point of contention over the last year, notably in the Australian round of the mountain bike world cup. A skinsuit-clad Tracy Moseley (Kona) won the women's race by four seconds ahead of Rachel Atherton (Animal-Commencal), who claimed that the skin suit gave Moseley an unfair advantage.

"Fair enough to Tracey if she wants to do that to win, but for the sport and the longevity of the sport, to wear cool race kit and to make an image for yourself is more important than the odd win here and there," said Atherton.

6 comments:

badger dave said...

surely you do what it takes to win?! if a less stylish bike results in a podium then you ride that not the cool graphic'd but slower one?

image is more important than the odd win- mr Bolt, every pro skier and those who adopted full body swimsuits would possibly disagree8

what other sport can you imagine this happening in?

*actually Bolt may still win while sporting DH baggies

DMC said...

good to see the wheels are still spinning... I like the look of the your road bike in the last post.

34x18 said...

road bike, you'd get your ass kicked for saying something like that around here. That my friend is a cyclocross bike, and yes me likes to wear the skinsuits whilst riding!

badger dave said...

sorry im sure ive asked before but how much is shipping to spain for an indy fab tee? and any idea when youll be getting more medium black?

Anonymous said...

The issue is that its a common consensus that outside of worlds, skin suits, bullet helmets and etc are a no no. Its not so much of an argument over fashion, but because no one wants to wear skin suits. Everybody knows that they are faster, but who really wants to downhill in a skin suit? Plus I am sure that Troy Lee Designs and other companies would not be happy seeing most of their top riders drop their baggies in favor of clothing the likes of Santini, Louis Garnaeu etc.

34x18 said...

annom, i disagree on all fronts. They are not faster, unless you are talking a course like the old kamakazie in Mammoth. Most of today's courses play on rider skills and always leave room for a rider to hang it out more, taking more chances to gain more time. Troy Lee invented the skinsuit for downhill mtb. In 1995 H-Ball was hitting world cups in a custom TLD skinsuit saying, "to be fast you have to look fast." TLD was also cranking out special aero visors and ferrings for events like Mammoth. I am not an advocate for skinsuits, I just think it is ridiculous that the UCI would take up such an issue (although they did ban Camelbacks for roadies) and a top rider would say something stupid like Atherton did admitting that her own riding skills are no match for some 2mm lycra - it is all pathetic.