For the past 12 years, yup 12 years, the Alliance has discussed the idea of creating an official jersey. We’ve done a couple of t-shirts, a few different stickers and what nots, but an actual jersey for all the Allies to where, that would be something special. It’s one thing to declare your sovereignty by putting a sticker of some blog on your two-wheeled love machine, but having something you can where whilst riding said machine…
I’m no designer. I can barely draw a stick figure, but if the ideas and creations that are bouncing around in my head were ever allowed out, you would all be blown away by how absolutely bat-shit crazy I really am. If only my hands worked in a way that would allow them to portray the things I see in my third eye.
Over the years, I have come up with several different ideas but I never could quite put my finger on what was missing or why I just didn’t feel comfortable pulling the trigger on some kits. This was all true until yesterday morning. Having been inspired by Jamon’s getup for the TrueGrit Epic bicycle race thingy that happened last weekend and that found him being interviewed in the local fish rubber, I decided yesterday morning that I was going to follow suit and create my very own cutoff bicycle riding shirt jersey.
Luckily I have a 3D printer which I promptly fired up and had it spit me out a used Michelin shop shirt. Of course, I printed the thing with the sleeves intact so I could give it that homemade look by ripping them off myself. If you look closely you can see where the seem once was. And if you look super close you can see where we haven’t finished painting the hallway yet.
Unfortunately my 3D printer has some serious flaws. Most notably it won’t print me a MCA patch onto my jersey. But before you get your panties all tied in a knot and you can’t get them off, I will be outsourcing the patches so by the time we have gone through all the prototyping necessary to create a serious, functional cycling piece, we will also have all the branding needed to make sure that everyone knows how cool you are because you have the MCA logo embroidered on your chest.
But enough of the useless details, how does it work?
Let me preface this review with the obvious, this is a prototype and we will be continuing are R&D for at least another 20 minutes. There were a couple of flaws that will be addressed in the next printing.
Let’s get the negatives out of the way. First, the Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt will show off the upper parts of your arms. If you are not properly prepared, you will look like you are still wearing a t-shirt. We will be bundling the Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt with some rub-on tanning lotion. Second, if you are someone who does not often where sleeveless riding shirts, you will want to be extra careful to slather on the sunscreen all the way onto the back of your shoulders. These guys are breezy and the sun will hit back there even when wearing a pack. You’ve been warned.
Outside of those two things, one of the which we have already remedied with the bundling package, there are absolutely no other negatives.
Let’s get into the good stuff.
1. The Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt is guaranteed to make you look at least 74.35% more attractive to the opposite sex. The adjective most used yesterday during our testing phase was, “Sexy.” The term was thrown around so many times that it became cliché and we had to go back to the drawing board and find another adjective. We came up with, “Sexxxxy.” Both work and are pretty much interchangeable.
2. The collar is superb at keeping the sun off one’s neck. Seeing that the Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt is designed after the classic shop shirt it has a stiff collar. This is awesome for those days when you find yourself in the saddle pedaling around in the desert where there isn’t any shade to keep you from becoming one big red bald guy. Just take the collar and flip it up all Elvis style, problem solved. This feature is included at no extra charge.
3. You will no longer have to worry about sweaty nipples. The wide openings on the Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt allow the breeze to make its way into and through your riding kit. This helps wick the sweat away from your nipples and chest hair. And we all know there is nothing worse than finishing up a ride and having sweaty nipples surrounded by sweaty chest hair.
Of course, we wanted to ensure that all of these features were not just us being stoked about how cool of a product we had copied from Jamon. So as part of our testing, we did have a control subject that was required to wear a normal riding shirt. This was left up to Sir Prattipus. As you can see in the above photo, he was quite embarrassed by his sweaty nipples and moist chest hair so he wouldn’t even face the camera so we could get a decent picture. By the end of the ride the only thing keeping him from copying the Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt was the fact that his business partner would be pretty pissed if he came home with his new billboard shirt without any sleeves.
We can understand that.
So you are now asking yourself how do I get my hands on one of these amazing Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt? Well, we don’t want this product to come off half cocked like so many other bicycle designs. We will be doing further research and refining the design. Once we are done with all of our R&D, the Cutoff Bicycle Riding Shirt will be available for purchase right here on the Alliance website. If everything goes smoothly, we will have them available by Mid-April.
In the meanwhile, check out some of the other products and buy yourself a flask or a ScRam T-shirt…
And here’s Leaf.
And KB.
P. L. and R.
