Too cool for gloves and other miscellany

I understand and often embrace the benefits of riding bikes without gloves on.  It's easier to operate the shifters and brakes and the bars feel less mushy and disconnected.  It feels better in hot weather.  It seems to have started a couple seasons ago when some of the top US CX pros popularized it, although BMXers have been doing it for a long time.

It seems the fad is catching on, especially with the road pros.  Add it to the list of the essential Pro look.  But when it's cold enough to need a jacket, leg warmers and a neck gator, it's cold enough to wear gloves.  Silly roadies. 

from cyclingnews.com

I think once people start crashing on the road with no gloves on, the fad will fade a bit.  Although I predicted the Oakley Jawbone fad would also fade, but much to my chagrin it hasn't.  They are still among the ugliest and least practical sunglasses in cycling.  Just watch how many Oakley-sponsored pros start with the ever fashionable Jawbones, then mysteriously switch to the classic Radars soon after (J-Pow for example).  Whose idea was it to put the frames under the eyes?  The whole point of cycling sunglasses is to not have that.

As much as I dislike Jawbones, the sunglasses Saxo Bank and Lampre wear are certainly uglier. They are flipping huge. Don't get me started on the Specialized helmets, which have been ugly since they introduced them in like 2002 and left them unchanged since.  To be fair, if it's not a top-end Bell, Giro or Lazer I tend to think it's ugly.  Exception to that is the Giro Prolight.  Ugliest helmet ever, and it cost $200.  It occurs to me that Contador is always stuck with ugly helmets:   

from cyclingnews.com

Also, that new Team Type 1 kit above is the ugliest I've seen since the Footon-Servetto days. Skin-colored Lycra again?  It's just wrong.  If the UCI is going to do their usual over-regulation, they should regulate the use of that color.

Enough bike fashion policing.  In other news, I've decided to ride my road bike more this year, relative to last year's volume anyway.  In years past I did more of it and it seems to help.  Otherwise I wouldn't do it. 

To pique my interest in riding the road bike, I've ditched the SHAM Force/Rival and have made the reverse leap to Shimano Ultegra Di2.  I have ridden a lot of different groups and completely adopted SRAM drivetrains for a while.  But I went back to Shimano on the MTBs and am thrilled with it.  So, after SRAM did their completely lame and beyond-annoying Twitter mass-marketing of the "new" (but barely any different) 2013 Red details, I jumped ship completely and embraced the awesomeness that is Shimano (for the record, I still really like Rock Shox forks, but we can turn the other way and think of them as a separate company for convenience).

I have the Ultegra Di2 set up and really like it.  It's heavy but the shifting is great.  You can use any gear combo you want since the front derailleur moves with the rear automatically.  Plus it never needs to be adjusted.  While it will be nice on the road bike, it's going to be downright amazing on the CX bike.  If Shimano comes out with XTR Di2 my mind will be blown, and I will go bankrupt.