- The UCI's rule book.
How we'd all love
to just rip it up and throw it away.
Well, there is one rule which was recently introduced,
and that was all about sock length.
Let's ask the riders what they think about that
and also what the ideal sock length should be.
(techno music)
- (laughs) Triathletes, be careful.
- (laughing)
(air whooshing)
You are a stylish man, I've got to say.
Now the UCI was got a rule about the length of the socks.
(laughing)
What's the perfect sock length?
- Now the question is
the shoe cover,
because also on the track the shoe cover is back,
but yeah, always at the limit.
So, the good tips is do a sign on your legs
about your alpha part of the legs
and yeah, put the socks at the limit.
- Maybe a tattoo on the leg?
- Probably a tattoo, but I'm not sure about how cool it is
have the tattoo there.
(laughing)
- Are you a fan of people,
essentially looking like triathletes
or footballers on the bike or not?
- (laughs) Triathletes, be careful.
(laughing)
- Yeah, sorry about that.
- Yeah, I think there is too long, there is too long.
Actually, I have these one pair of socks
I used them quite a lot
in the Giro and they just got longer
and they just stretched and stretched,
now are too long. - Oh yeah.
- Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And that was too long, yeah, I think it can be too long,
that's definitely.
So I don't like to go above the UCI rule.
This is the only UCI rule I like to respect.
- (laughs) So how long is too long?
- How long is too long?
If it goes above your calf it's too long.
- There we are, nice and simple.
- I think, it's like, ain't we look at it and think
it's a big rigmarole all over something quite petty
when you look at some of the other issues
we face in cycling.
But I guess it has to be,
you know,
in cycling is this funny traditional that we have to still,
like bicycles still look like bicycles
like they did back in the day.
They're not, they don't look like,
sort of your equivalent
of going from a Toyota Corolla to a Formula One car.
You still have the sort of basic silhouette
of a bicycle in there,
and they now want to keep
the cycling tradition alive.
So I can see that.
It just has to be,
you can't have people rolling off the start line
pulling up their socks after going through the check
and then podium.
I mean that sort of thing is quite brazen.
So maybe some leniency.
I mean it's quite,
the whole UCI check,
when it first came about was quite funny.
Obviously they've got a fancy old jig for it now,
but you'd kind of measure.
We'd be out in the bus before
measuring the distance between our ankle bone and our knee
and then you'd draw a little line two centimeters above
where the midpoint is.
And say to the commissaire
"That's, yeah,
I measured it myself, that's the line."
And he'd be like "Oh, okay
you've done my job for me."
Obviously I never did that. - Obviously.
- But yeah, all those,
that's all gone and done now 'cause
they've got that real fancy jig which is it.
So the only way around it is to just pull your socks up
after the start round.
- What's the ideal sock length then?
Is there one?
- I mean for aero it's as high as possible.
For tan lines it's ankle socks.
For your day to day stuff I'd say a centimeter gap
below the bottom of your calf muscle
and the top of your socks.
- There we are.
Today though well you've got a totally different look,
haven't you?
But you have got your own personalized sliders.
Pretty jealous about those actually.
[techno music]
- There are definitely other things I worry about
so if at the start line someone's coming over
and pulling my socks down, then fine.
- (laughing) - Seriously.
- I would love to see that.
Someone comes and pulls your socks down.
- Yeah.
- There's bigger things in the world to worry about.
- Definitely, definitely.
Not only in the world,
but even in cycling
we could.
We have different things to worry about.
- I'd say it's secondary
to a bunch of the rules they should be enforcing.
- Good man.
And what's the ideal sock length for you?
- Whatever they give me.
- I love this guy (laughing).
- I'm absolutely clued up
and I think it's allowed to be half.
Half way between your ankle and your--
- Your knee?
- Top of your tibia.
I don't know. - Yeah.
- Whatever. What I think,
to be honest,
if you're having them half way up
it doesn't look too good anyway.
So probably optimum length for aesthetics
is going to be a bit lower anyway,
and then I've got no idea if it's faster to have aero socks.
And from what I've been told it makes almost no difference,
so you know if they have a rule that's saying
it has to be half way,
I'd probably have it a little bit less anyway
just to not look silly.
- And what about today then?
Are you rocking the perfect length do you reckon?
- Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, these are pretty good.
We've got on the DeFeet socks.
So I'd say I'm pretty happy with that.
And they could be a bit longer for me,
just 'cause I've got quite long legs,
but I wouldn't say you want too much higher than this.
- You're going to look tanned aren't you?
Plain white socks like that here in Australia.
Can't beat it.
- Going to look tan? Not yet.
I've not seen any real sun for about three months.
So so far it's just been on my hands.
Plenty of suncream on so maybe in a two weeks time
when we leave I'll have a tan.
- Yeah, I can't talk about burning.
Look at the state of me.
All right, cut. (laughing)
- I haven't really thought about that.
I mean, I guess in a way it's probably better than
everybody riding around with tubes and stuff,
just like knee-high socks.
Which would technically be more aerodynamic
as I understand it.
I don't think that would be very nice
when you go to the beach.
It looks horrible already as it is.
No, I do like sort of high socks,
and if it was just for the socks I don't really care.
But if people try to take an advantage
and ride with that compression stuff.
In a way the rule's the rule,
and I don't really care too much.
- Okay, is there an ideal sock length for you though?
- Well I'd need to be fairly long,
not like these ankle socks. - No.
- I'm not a big fan of that.
But yeah, sort of like
basically this sort of height.
I've got to sort it out properly.
But that's kind of good, I don't mind.
Just underneath the calf.
- I reckon that looks good.
Well I've got to say that.
- Well thank you very much.
- He stood next to me.
I've got to say that.
- Yeah, I'll wait to see the video
to see what you say afterwards (laughing).
- No I'm nice to you.
- Yeah, all right cool.
- It's the other guys.
- Yeah, no that's all right I know them too.
- I think first and foremost there's probably other rules
they look into before they worry about sock length.
But yeah, you know for me,
I'm kind of like a not too high, not too low
kind of middle ground kind of guy.
And yeah, if some guys want to go super high,
some guys want to do super low
doesn't really bother me.
They just don't look good.
- Now speaking about socks,
at the Olympics were you one of the no sock brigade,
or not?
- So funnily enough for the games we actually ran
no socks for the whole year before the Olympics.
And then funnily enough a lot of teams started also
wearing no socks.
And then when we got to the Olympics
then we brought the aero socks,
and they were still riding around with no socks.
So it was a bit of a game to be honest.
But no, for the games we all had aero socks.
- Whoever thought socks
could be such an interesting conversation?
There we go.
The pros thoughts on sock length.
Basically it shouldn't be up to your knees,
and it shouldn't be at your ankles.
Somewhere just in between.
And also the UCI should worry about other rules
instead of one about sock length.
And I kind of agree on that.
Let us know what your ideal sock length is
down there in the comment section below.
Should the UCI enforce this rule anymore?
Get involved in that comment section.
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And I'm going to go and put some more suncream on.
And pull my socks up probably.