For all of my lack of attention to the finer points that cycling aficionados care about, I’m a little picky about jerseys (and tights).

In general, I don’t like jerseys. It’s the pockets and the fit. Russ loads his up, I don’t like to have anything sliding around on my lower back. I didn’t like it before I started slinging my camera there, and I never wanted to wear anything tight enough to keep it from happening.

I like the extra length a jersey gives in back, but I don’t want much of anything in the pockets. That renders jerseys pretty much useless to me. If I had one that fit, it’s possible I might like one.

But, I have some merino sport shirts with small side pockets. They were fine. The old phone even fit, but the new one doesn’t and fit is a challenge for me. I’m a heavier than most serious cyclists, and have a more athletic build than most heavy cyclists, so my shape/size combo isn’t the most common. That goes for bike shorts, tights and knickers too. An uncommon fit makes it harder to find clothes and especially hard to find them well priced.

I don’t worry about jersey fit too much because I’m all about Smartwool, or sometimes another brand of merino. 100% wool is so comfortable. The range of comfortable temperatures for merino is much larger than people who don’t wear it would suspect, and it breathes so well. It doesn’t give me the prickly heat type rash that nylon tends to put on my upper body. I see ads for bras and panties made of merino, and if I ever decide to spend $80 for a bra, I’d like to give one a shot. Bras, panties, undershirts, tights, you name it, I’d like to give them all a try. Decades back, I thought I wanted silk long underwear, but I’m always doing something that damages my skin, whether its creative, dishes or gardening. Silk just sticks and pulls on my hands and reminds me that my hands have little roughnesses that I didn’t notice until I rubbed them across.

There is a problem with wool though. Moths love even better than I do. Last week I washed some of my heavier pieces. I wanted to make sure there were no moth eggs in them before I put them away for the summer. Some had damage that didn’t show, and after washing it so sad. I now have 4 pieces lost to moths. They are Smartwool pieces I bought all about the same time from REI. I had been storing them in original packaging and the holes showed on the first wash for each garment. I wondered if they were damaged before purchase. There were pieces in my closet, in the same drawer with no damage that were older, but having the sales clerk look at you funny is uncomfortable, so I didn’t try to tell anyone I thought the unworn clothes came with eggs. I was crushed. I pay the money for Smartwool because it lasts for years, except for when it doesn’t.

I am thinking more about color for clothing than I normally do. Normally I go for visibility, but one day I was behind Russ while he was wearing a bright green jersey. It disappeared into the nearly glowing vibrant trail foliage. I thought about how useful it might be to go with chroma key colors for the bikes and kit. We’ll ride together, but we’ll both be recording and separate enough to be out of each other’s video (but not so much that we are guaranteed never showing up in each other’s video). Matching the background, or being a color that is easily removed could be useful if we ever go on to edit any of the footage for future projects.

Fantasy Island

A cedar storage closet for my merino? I really need a cedar lined Tardis so I’ll have a place to put that closet (and all that stuff in my basement too). I thought about designing a project team shirt/jersey. Decent T-shirts are pretty easy to get at reasonable prices, I lean toward raglan three-quarter length sleeves during the comfortable seasons. That’s doable, and t-shirts are fine for both of us while riding the recumbent in good weather. Jerseys can be ordered printed too, though I don’t have experience with brands on those, so getting a quality jersey with the right fit could be an experimental bother that I’m not willing to spend the money on.

It’s probably worth it though. IRL I have designed one I’m happy with in my mind. On Fantasy Island the design will be custom created by Don Moyer who started Calamityware with a Kickstarter (no, he doesn’t know me, or anything about this. I just love his art and this is the Fantasy Island part of the program).

I see a design that reflects both of the trails. Mine is a comet with a feather tail or coma. When you look close at his, you s would see it’s made of robots and pterodactyls, a mosaic of “things could be worse” or, maybe done in a way that is somewhat reminiscent of something Salvador Dali would do with ants and lilies, probably a mash up that includes some small images tailored to cycling and the trail would work best. The Chief Ladiga Trail part of the imagery is the challenge, finding something appropriate that also communicates that trail, there’s just one image of Chief Ladiga that people are familiar with. It could be a single color with glow in the dark ink for safety. It would be on the front or the sleeve. Yeah, that’s it. That would be pretty cool.