My Ramblings and some (semi) thought out ideas part 2

Thank you to all of those who read my post and put in their comments. thanks to you i have decided to make this a regular post. some of you may be rolling your eyes and some of you might be eagerly waiting to read what i have for you, however, its your fault now deal with it.

While i was in the car on my way home from a crit in Concord, NH i happened to be on the CXM website on my cell phone and i read an article about qwerky rules in the UCI rule book. What i came across was staggering. for 1, according to UCI you are not allowed to wear shorts that go past the knee...WHATT!?!?!?!?!?!?! the rule states that no matter the weather anything the goes below the knee is not allowed. That outrages me to no end. does this mean that in the event that my leg sucmbs to frost bite and has to be amputated that i can blame the UCI for their careless rules as to what clothing is legal in cross'? i feel that you should be allowed to wear whatever u want as long as you can race in it. now i'm not saying that can breathe easier and finally wear that new Banana hammock you got in hopes it would help with those saddle sores and not wear anything else. I am saying that you should be able to wear what keeps you warm (or cool depending on the weather) I find it hard to believe that while the UCI officials are holding their clipboards and stopwatches and whistles sipping their coffee and wearing jacket upon jacket with hand and feet warmers and all the essential knick-knacks that keep them warm, can they pick out the one Cat 5. racer wearing knee warmers who they know will trip over the first barrier and slide out all over the place in the snow and tell him to take them off. it baffles me. As if Cyclocross wasn't hard enough the clothing....THE CLOTHING.. of all parts of cross do they put rules against. The Lycra that is keeping your core body temp at or around 98.6 should be the last thing that anyone who knows how hard cross is should have to worry about. ok, enough of that.
While reading this same article i read one rule and after some careful thought it made me laugh at how easy the author misconstruded the actual meaning of the rule. number 2, says that anyone who is Retired may not cross the start line and has to leave the course imedietly. now the wording in the article made it seem as though they were against older men who refuse to pull out their AARP card everytime they fall in the sand pit and are too proud to admit they could be Tim Johnson's Dad and they are banning them from cross... Not the case... The Rule actually is saying that anyone who is out of contention and is, in the eyes of the officials may get in the way of the leaders, when told by the race officials to please RETIRE from the course and not finish the race because they were lapped 500 times they are not allowed to cross the finish line and must leave the course imedietly. The best part of the whole 4 minutes was me reading this rule to my grandfather who is in the middle of building his cross bike because he is gonna try it and see how he likes it. he looked at me sitting in the passenger seat with mouth wide open and santa-clause looking beard seemingly parting like the red sea (ketchup from macdonalds still on his face) and said, no joke "SAY WHATTTT?!?!?!?!" i had to laugh over his explination of how the rule was wrong and the author took it the wrong way. i wish i had a video of it. as if road racing wasn't completley whacked out. i should have known what i was getting myself into with cross. well... i digress
see you next post. make sure to leave your comments to help spark my imaginantion
Ian