High Road Pro Cycling

Who is this wanker and what does he do for a living? Perhaps he is a donut chef on a competitive donutmaking team. No, too healthy-looking . Or possibly a moto-cross dirtjumper guy blasting his motorbike over huge lumps of dirt no-handedly. But he's so dirtless. Or perhaps he's a road racing professional cyclist pretending he's Tom Cruise.

The subject of today's complaint is aesthetic: this name and design spat out by the entity formerly known as T-Mobile Team annoys me considerably. Of course the telephony giant withdrew their long sponsorship after the three-scandals-too-many year of 2007, having hung in there after the Jan Ullrich doping disaster/public disembowelment at the Tour launch of 2006. The complete re-jigging of T-Mob as a squeaky clean, drug-free squadra (+ Torontonian pro Mike Barry!) fell to bits last year and the German sponsor finally called it quits. It was the end of an era that saw the some of the best (if dopey) days of Ullrich, Vinokourov, Kloeden, and my man Erik Zabel, but better yet, it was the last end of the hideous pink/black uniform supplied by Adidas. I never liked it, particularly the 'magenta' aspect.
The above picture details what the new team strip looks like. White is fine, a good fresh start type colour, but what of this Fast Food bubble font in bright red and yellow? Does it mean that if this new, principle sponsorless team fails, all employees will have a leg up on Wimpy serving High Road hormone-free high protein burgers?
There is such a plethora of hideous designs in the spandexed world of road racing that it pains me to see a new opportunity to improve (and here without even the constraint of a title sponsor) basically ruined. I mean, would you go out and spend $125 on THAT jersey? Good god.