Yellow is the New Black

Me, in my own personal fashion shoot, wearing the vest. Models like me would give PR designers some heartburn, I'm thinking.

CR Biker is slightly bummed this morning. When I pulled up Blogger, planning to write this post, I noted that Tom & Lorenzo had blogged about episode 1 of Project Runway all-stars.

And that reminded me that my sister had asked on Facebook if I had watched that episode.

Horrors. A season of Project Runway is underway and I’ve missed episode one! Given how bad recent seasons have been for us veteran PR watchers, that might not sound like a big deal, except that according to T & L, the gay gods of taste who watch over and blog about Project Runway, the first episode was pretty good. And I self confess that I will find a bad season of Project Runway more entertaining than practically anything else on TV, excepting a Rick Perry meltdown during a debate.

Well. In the immortal words of the doofus Gov. from Texas, “oops.”

So, bike blog friends, what does this have to do with the price of chain lube in Iowa?

Just this: I’m sporting a bit of new fashion myself this morning. Ben flew back from England yesterday, and brought the final piece of Christmas bling for CR biker. Thanks to the British branch of the clan and my wife for this wonderful conspiracy that now has me clad in a bright yellow reflective bike vest.

I have long wondered about winter coat design. Even an old straight man like CR biker knows you don’t wear white after Labor Day, but why are winter coats, worn during the darkest months of the year, so somber in color? Seems like a recipe for bikers and walkers being creamed by cars.

My bike jacket, named for a brand of camera I don’t own (I’m a Nikon shooter and a Canon jacket wearer, although I like Canons and have bought them for the MMU student newspaper, which has something to do with the jacket—the photo on this blog, by the way, is from my little Kodak point-and-shoot so it’s not even a part of the whole Nikon v Canon jihad), has a dark blue hue, bisected by a nice white stripe, which makes some sense—except the stripe is only in the front. The back is totally Navy, which means only the cars I can see see me—the one’s I don’t see don’t see me, either.

Hmmmm.

Anyway, all of this is cured by the vest. Hooray for the vest. I’m sure it makes me look like a total dork. But a biker with a flashing red triangle on his head, tire valve covers that blink red and neon yellow leg straps obviously is comfortable with his dorkdom.

So, for me at least, neon yellow is the new black, or Navy, or something. Anyway, it’s cool in that totally un-hip cool way that I prefer to be cool. Although I do wonder a little.

What would Tom & Lorenzo say?