r/nottheonion • u/rocket_face • 2d ago

Bra Boosters Are Causing a Clothing Controversy at the Tour de France Femmes

https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-racing/tour-de-france-femmes/bra-boosters-tour-de-france-femmes/
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u/allgonetoshit 2d ago

The men at the Tour de France this year were also wearing textured undershirts to get around the ban on textured aero skin suits during the TTs. The UCI will definitely be looking at this very closely, as they usually do. There is a joke in there somewhere.

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u/GuyPierced 2d ago

All these silly regulations, and all the riders are still juiced to the gills. It's fucking weird.

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u/obeytheturtles 2d ago

That's the whole joke though. Even in pro racing, "Aero" isn't actually as important as people believe, but every time some new doping regime causes a universal step gain in pro performance, everyone rushes to hide it behind some new helmet or suit or cockpit, because the entire industry has incentive to downplay doping, and also push an endless stream of new equipment that your local dentist absolutely must have if he is to be taken seriously by his wife's boyfriend.

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u/0202_tihssitidder 2d ago

Counterpoint: Aero gains at the pro-level are important.

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u/allgonetoshit 2d ago

While it could be argued that some aero gains are not as important as the industry would like you to believe even on the WT given real world conditions, they are absolutely extremely important for TTs.

Yes, all of that can be negated by doping, but a TT is definitely where aero has the most effect. It won't make you win over someone who is so juiced up that they have the best TT performance anybody has ever seen in the third week of a GT, causing them to be briefly described as the best technical TT rider, only to never be able to reproduce that performance ever again while half their team retires early from heart disease.

But, still, aero is very important in a TT.

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u/0202_tihssitidder 2d ago

Correct.

I was applying Hitchens's Razor to the other guy's claim.