A comment on the blog yesterday about riders ditching their waste food wrappers reminded me of a small detail worth sharing. The Saur-Sojasun jersey has two small pockets on the side for riders to put waste, for example empty gel wrappers.
The team rode the Tour de France this year. They didn’t win much but you might remember Jérôme Coppel who finished 14th overall and they had the youngest rider in the race Anthony Delaplace, who got in a few breakaways. Not the biggest team but a good bunch of guys.
Look at Coppel above and the green material to the left of the “s” in saur.com and you might see the pocket. Here’s a close up:
It’s a practical solution to the problem of sticky wrappers. Races often take place in scenic areas and we shouldn’t see 150 riders littering national parks and open country. But put the empty packaging back into your rear pockets and it can stick to unused things meaning it’s hard to tell what’s useful when you next dip your hand back in.
Saur is a company that provides water and environmental services and Sojasun produces organic soya food products so this very much fits with the team’s image. Fellow French squad FDJ also do the same with their jerseys.
Very good initiative. Cycling should care more about its playground: the earth. Why is there no award for the most environmentally aware UCI race & Pro team?
Hello, Inrng.
I would appreciate if you added the protocol to the URLs in your articles. When you type the URL as “www.saur-sojasun.com” like in this article, all standards compliant browsers interpret it as a relative URL and take me to “http://inrng.com/2011/10/saur-sojasuns-rubbish-jersey/www.saur-sojasun.com”. Which obviously does not work.
So, please type URLs as “http://www.saur-sojasun.com”. It helps us readers.
Thank you.
Apparently the jerseys are made by BioRacer. My club purchases jerseys from BioRacer too. Unfortunately I can’t find these jerseys from BioRacer’s website. Are they custom made?
Thanks Torben. I use Firefox and the new v.7 abbreviates the URL meaning when I copy it to paste a link it doesn’t include the http:// element. I’m aware of this now so hopefully no more 404 errors.
One question for regular folks (non-racers or those simply training) is why eat all this crap wrapped in mylar in the first place? I’m reminded of the diary of ol’ Chris Horner where he remembered the day he was just a few kms from the finish line and declined to eat his last “energy bar” in favor of the sandwich waiting for him in the fridge in the team bus. His plan backfired when he completed the last few meters seeing the classic black spots, only to see the bus (and his sandwich) leave for the team hotel before he could get there! Marco Pantani used to ride up into the hills inland from Cesanatico and stop for a bowl (or two) of tortellini in brodo rather than eat engineered food. Why eat this stuff unless you are forced to? The pros don’t. Do people really believe all the wild claims the makers of this stuff make?
The leaders jerseys in this year’s Tour had similar side pockets for discarded wrappers. Cycling Weekly here in the UK spotted it.
Brilliant idea. It’s a real hate of mine to see sportive riders and pretend racers throwing rubbish in the roads. The roads of Majorca are littered with British bar wrappers every spring and it is frankly embarrassing. I’d love to see a team like Sky copy this idea, it would make up in some small way for their Sky Velo riders tossing rubbish around the Surrey lanes as they act out their racing fantasy’s.
@Larry T. – I agree that unprocessed food is better than some of the processed ‘products’ sold as sports nutrition, but even bananas, raw bars and flapjacks have some kind of packaging. I wouldn’t take a sandwich on a ride without some kind of wrapper.
The sight of gel and bar wrappers along the roadside will only give cyclists a bad name, so attempts to reduce it are a win-win, and the simple ideas are often the best ones. Thanks to inrng for flagging this up and well done to Bio-Racer for implementing it. Good question by DeeJay, too.
Larry T: you are right, these are not good. Many pros go training with bananas, sandwiches and more, especially since they consume so many of these energy foods during the year. But they have their uses, you can’t stuff a sandwich down as easy as a gel.
If you want bio racer to do this… tell them! http://www.bioracer.com/startpage.aspx
@anon I have noticed the same thing here in the Pyrenees this summer. Europeans don’t litter in general, but it is a big problem in Britain and Ireland. I’m a banana man, or some home-made flapjacks or fruit cake or cerial bars from the supermarket. There is so much highly processed sugars in gels and other energy products that they should be used very sparingly if at all. However on a long ride or a long climb like Tourmalet it is easier to eat a gel than a banana.
…..and teach your body to burn the fat on your arse and use that energy first before you get hooked into believing you have to eat on every ride 3 hr ride you go out on. The gu’s the gel’s the vile disgusting good for nothing dried junk, when all you need, when done right is already on you.
If I have an empty wrapper I just stuff it up the bottom jersey at the front. It’s better that way than putting it in my pocket and then have it fly out when I take something else out. It kind of falls out when I get home, but I have a bin there in which I can put it. Cunning!
I got one of those kits from the team. Couldn’t figure out what those pockets were for. They close with a small magnetic closure to stay aero. Cool thanks.
Thanks Inrng for making this article regarding my comment/question yesterday! Good to see that some apparel manufacturers are taking the issue seriously! My personal approach is to keep food in one rear pocket and stuff the used wrappers in another pocket! Helps avoid the irritation of trying to take food from your pocket, only to pull out a used wrapper!
It’s not that hard to put the rubbish in one of the three pockets, and food in the other two. Still I like the idea.
Darren beat me to it