Tuesday, May 18, 2010

On sponsors, laundry, and landmark events

Padraig over at Red Kite Prayer has a philosophy with regard to wearing old cycling kits: any company willing to support cycling with sponsorship dollars for whatever period of time, he’s willing to support by wearing their kit.

I think that’s a good approach. I’ve got a few teammates whom I’ve only ever seen training in this year’s kit. And while I admire their loyalty to our sponsors, my cycling budget isn’t vast enough to purchase enough kits to train in nearly every day of the week, and my patience for doing laundry isn’t high enough to wash the same ones over and over.

So I usually just wear team kit on race days (typically a couple times a week) and wear whatever else is clean on all the others. Besides, the kits advertising a shop other than Revolution were given to me by Steve’s boss, gratis. And since they also have the name of his insurance agency on the bum, I may as well give him some exposure, natch. Because let’s face it, amongst bike racers, my butt is as wide as a billboard by comparison.

As for supporting the companies that support cycling, I hadn’t even heard of HTC before they signed on as a sponsor of what is now HTC-Columbia last year. They make mobile phones. I needed a new phone, so I bought one of theirs. Mostly because they sponsor a cycling team. Turns out I quite like the phone (or at least the platform for the android operating system, which, with zero intervention from me other than signing in, linked my email, calendar, address book, and pretty much everything else I do online to my phone). Also turns out it has a built-in twitter app.

I like to make fun of twitter. I especially like to make fun of people that tweet every time any of the following landmark events occurs in their lives: their music player starts the next song; they buy a cup of coffee; they have a bowel movement, regardless of whether it’s gratifying or not. Seriously, the line between newsworthy and not is not nearly that fine. I know we bloggers think that every little thing about our lives is legitimate content (take this post, for instance), but if bloggers are egotists, constant tweeters (of what could in many cases rightly be described as anti-content) are clinical narcissists.

Nevertheless, I’ve embraced twitter. Most of the people I follow are guys from the neighborhood. It’s great for announcing group rides in Corner Canyon that I never attend. It’s great for announcing that the midweek race is once again canceled due to weather. It’s also great when you set your DVR to record the Giro with the anticipation of watching as if it were live that night, only for someone to tweet a spoiler. I especially love that part.

9 comments:

  1. I don't see anything wrong with only buying one team kit. Have there been complaints or murmurings critical of riders not in team kit all the time?

    What Android phone do you have? What do you like / not like about it?

    "Silly internet users, twitter is for twits." Not really, but I couldn't help paraphrasing the old Trix tag line. Twitter is just a tool, but how it's (ab)used is telling. Facebook updates aren't much different. This satirical commentary says it all:

    http://current.com/shows/supernews/89891774_twouble-with-twitters.htm

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  2. I like to keep it a complete mystery what kit i am going to race in next, i have also become a fan of not matching a single damn thing.

    Although, the Sugoi chamois in the RD shorts is the best damn chamois ever.

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  3. of course, when my new team kit arrives in june, that will be all i wear.

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  4. If you believe the interweb, Utah is home to the "best" tweeters in the country.

    See!

    I try to make a point of being as sarcastic as possible on Twitter. Unless I'm announcing a ride or something. But then, maybe that is why nobody ever shows up... they just think I'm being an (smart?) ass again.

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  5. I'l also add that I didn't really embrace Twitter until I had it on my phone. Same with Facebook.

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  6. Kris: Nobody's said a word about what kit I wear. I wear last year's mtn kit at the mid-week road races on a regular basis and nobody minds. I've just noticed there are some that only wear this year's kit. I salute them for their loyalty.

    As for the phone, I have the HTC Eris. Likes: small footprint (fits in pocket easier than an iphone--only slightly bigger than a Moto Razr); seamless integration with google everything; more apps than I could ever need or use; I can use it on Verizon network, so I get good coverage, which can be an issue at my house, especially since I don't have a land line. Dislikes: not used to typing on a touch screen--I think I could text faster on the numeric keypad of my old phone; battery is mostly drained by end of the day, and I don't use it particularly heavily (I bought a spare battery on Amazon just to have a backup if I need it--$12 and I haven't needed it yet).

    Bob: I've noticed that about you. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen you wear Revolution team kit.

    Adam: I still can't bring myself to embrace facebook. At least not yet. Maybe if I started posting satirical status updates it would be more fun.

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  8. It has been seen....

    http://tinyurl.com/29fln5t

    http://tinyurl.com/2algnn9

    http://tinyurl.com/2aeala5

    http://tinyurl.com/2e9gohm

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  9. I read this and panicked. See, I go around creating rabidrunner accounts everywhere I can think so as to beat all others to it. I'm sure I have thousands of unused junk all over the webiverse. But how is that I excaped (misspelled on purpose) creating a twitter account? I mean, that's an obvious. I'm seriously off of my "A" game right now.

    So to ensure some other rabidrunner twit hasn't stolen my identity, I rushed right over and created one while I was waiting for birthday balloons.

    That was close!

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