Zip-gate Appendage

This is a follow-up to Zip-gate, Wednesday's post on Stephen Roche's comments that cyclists shouldn't be allowed to unzip their jerseys.

On my ride yesterday, I thought I'd take a photo of myself and tweet it Roche's way. Actually, the photo was taken at my usual sugarcane juice stop while I took a break from my ride. After taking several photos of the sky, my knee and the ground with my phone's camera, I finally got the money shot;

In my state of concentration, I failed to notice the sugarcane lady was observing all the action. When I finally looked up and noticed her, it was too late; in her eyes I was some kind of freak.

Even if we'd spoken the same language, I doubt I would have been able to lessen her opinion of me as a freak;

"Oh, hi there. You must be wondering why I've just sat down here, unzipped my jersey and proceeded to take several photos of myself. Well, let me explain. You've heard of Stephen Roche, right? Oh, you haven't? Well, he was a great cyclist in the 80s and won events including the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the World Championships. Anyway, he's just come out and said that cyclists shouldn't be allowed to unzip their jerseys because he thinks it damages the image of the sport. Ridiculous, right? Yeah, I know. So, I'm just taking this photo as a bit of a joke to send his way. Get it? Yeah, I know, hilarious!"

Anyway, we didn't speak the same language, so I just had to shrug and smile, concede that in her eyes I'm some sort of narcissistic weirdo and ensure that next time I passed through these parts I would have to find myself a new usual sugarcane juice stop.

But I digress. Not long after tweeting my hilarious message and photo to Stephen Roche, I received the life-affirming message that my tweet had been retweeted, which in the twittersphere is like getting an employee of the month certificate...in a frame.

My pride was turned all the way up to 11 when I saw that the tweet was retweeted by none other than Roche himself;

It's great to see that this champion does not take himself too seriously. While I have always respected Roche as a cyclist, I can now say I respect him as a person too (granted, this respect is not based on a large sample size but it's all I've got and it works for me).

As someone once said, "Don’t take yourself too seriously. And don’t be too serious about not taking yourself too seriously."

Seriously.

Happy Friday and ride safe.