It's only jock 'n' roll

One nice thing about riding my bike again is that I have rescued my cycling wardrobe from a destiny of mothballs.

Up until three years ago, I was content with cycling in a ratty T-shirt and cut-offs. Then I unloaded my clunky Schwinn on a friend, invested in a new road bike for myself and started training with serious cyclists.

It didn’t take long for me to catch on that I didn’t look like the other cyclists who passed me on the road. More important, I wasn’t as comfortable riding in street clothes as they seemed to be riding in jerseys and shorts designed for cycling. So before I got a reputation among my new cycling friends for making poor fashion choices, I decided that I better grow up and start looking like a serious cyclist myself.

My first cycling jersey was a Pos Ped jersey. Then I discovered the Rockware Jockware section of the store at the Rolling Stones’ website, and went wild one afternoon loading up on jerseys for the seven days of AIDS/LifeCycle 5.

My collection of Stones jerseys grew to a ridiculous size while training for AIDS/LifeCycle 6 and AIDS/LifeCycle 7. I must own eight or nine Stones jerseys now, all of them a different treatment of the band’s tongue logo. Maybe that doesn’t sound like an absurd amount to you but these babies cost $80 a pop! For three years now, I’ve been underwriting Mick Jagger’s summer vacations in the Mediterranean and keeping Keith Richards clad in Louis Vuitton.

At the same time, I was acquiring annual additions to my set of Pos Ped jerseys, and picking up AIDS/LifeCycle commemorative jerseys as well. So by now I reckon I own 25 jerseys in all.

If this cancer crisis had turned out differently than it has, I probably would have never worn those jerseys again, unless I decided to be buried in one of them. So it’s truly a wonderful feeling to slide open the drawer in my bureau where I keep my cycling gear, and picking out a jersey to wear.

I’m about ready to slip into my red, white and blue Stones tongue jersey to head home to begin the holiday weekend. What makes my cycling excursions even sweeter these days is that those fat red tongues on my Stones cycling jerseys are now more than a corporate logo; they're a symbol of my recovery-to-come.

But seriously, I don't need to go on any more shopping sprees in the Stones' Rockware Jockware shop. No matter how badly Keith needs to buy another pair of alligator boots.