Hats.

I just bought a hat.

Let me clarify that a bit more- I just spent far too much money on a cycling cap. You know, one of those things that went out of fashion shortly after Wesley Snipes educated the world about fair-skinned males not being able to leap vertically. I started riding road bikes long after helmets were deemed the only suitable headgear (by the people that are duly authorized to deem things in the cycling world), so I didn’t get to experience the heyday of the cycling cap. All I had a was a few grainy pictures of skinny dudes wearing what appeared to me to be the most pointless piece of cycling apparel ever invented. With its flimsy, cotton construction and tiny brim, it seemed only to serve as an aesthetic bit of fluff, only worthwhile as yet another place for a sponsor’s logo.

Then I started noticing them under the helmets of pro cyclists in races like Paris Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Under a helmet, the advertising impact is limited to that ridiculously small brim, so there had to be a reason why they would wear one beyond fashion or heritage. Intrigued, I picked up a cheap cycling cap on clearance and gave it a shot. After all, our spring and fall riding often bears a striking resemblance to Flanders, and there might just be something there.

I wear hard contact lenses thanks to the world’s worst eyesight and thin corneas. I’m literally blind without them. The tiniest speck of grit in my eyes causes me to pray for a merciful death. It’s like getting stabbed with a rusty spoke in the eye. To combat this, I wear sunglasses that closely follow the contours of my face, which almost eliminates the problem. Almost. Often salt from sweat or a stray particle of airborne dirt will get through my defenses, and I’ll be twitching like a tweaker on meth trying to blink the offending item out of my eye before any damage is done. If I’m just out riding, I can usually stop and remove the contact, flush the eye, and proceed on my way. If I’m racing, where my $18 entry fee, honor, and the fate of the free world is at stake, it’s not so easy. I’ll take a scratched cornea before I admit defeat.

So, last spring I started tucking my cheap cycling cap under my helmet. The air is usually a haze from the cars kicking up all of the sand they spread all winter, and I usually have constant red eyes from the irritation. This spring, not so much. That stupid little brim was just enough to cover the tops of my sunglasses, but not enough to interfere with vision. When it rained, it kept my glasses relatively clean and my head stayed warmer (even when soaked). As it warmed up and I started to sweat, a lot of that salt was soaked up by the hat. It wasn’t perfect on all counts, but it sure made riding more pleasant. Turns out those old-timey fellers knew a thing or two.

The only problem was that my cheap cycling cap didn’t take long to start falling apart. The elastic started to fray, the stitching started to fail, and I figured the lifecycle of that cap was nearing its end. I started looking at what was available, and it didn’t take too interweb searching to become overwhelmed with options. Thanks to a nation of fixie-riding hipsters, there’s a huge cottage industry of cycling cap makers to add to the abundant cheap caps that are still readily available. Unfortunately, most of these custom caps are made of heavy wool, have brims to the tip of my nose, and only seem appropriate when the wearer is puffing away on a meerschaum pipe. Not exactly what I was looking for. I wanted the shape and conservative design (any color as long as it’s black) as my cheap hat, just made much better.

After much searching, I finally found the one I wanted… from Rapha, the same guys who make pretentious, grainy, black and white films about cycling and use the word “bespoke” far more than necessary. The ones that try to evoke a sense of history far deeper than their 2004 founding might otherwise indicate (heck, my history in cycling goes back farther than that). While I don’t think much of the styling of most of their products, I will say that their bibs and merino wool base layers are my favorites, hands down. For what I paid for them (clearance, no less), they should be. Behind all of the highly-stylized marketing, they do sell some pretty good cycling duds, so I took a chance and paid twice as much as I should have for a silly little piece of cotton with a ridiculously small brim.

I sure hope it’s bespoke.