Hey everybody, it was a great weekend of racing and the team really had some strong showings. I am especially thankful for the team delivering me to 9th place in the field sprint on Saturday. Unfortunately, there were 7 racers up the road, but that’s bike racing. I was super excited to finish within 20 yards of the guy who won the field sprint, and I couldn’t help but approach him after the race and tell him that he should be listening for the sound of my footsteps. I’m not normally a trash talker, but I couldn’t help it.

That brings me to the serious portion of this email. We had a ton of people out racing this weekend and had a big presence at the big races, and that means that we got a lot of media coverage at those races. I was super stoked to see pictures of the team all over Facebook, Instagram and OK Cupid. But while I was browsing, I couldn’t help but notice that a good percentage of the photos were taken of people that were by definition, out of uniform.

I’m not pointing any fingers, but I saw multiple shots of people with non-sponsor branded clothing and equipment. Now I realize that many of you haven’t received your full team kit yet (Jeff, you need to finalize your order!!!), but for those who have been on the team for more than one season, there is NO EXCUSE for showing up to race in non-sponsor equipment. I realize that many of you have owned your heavy duty gloves and shoe covers for years now, but the directives in the team PDF explicitly state that any non-sponsor clothing needs to be replaced or it needs to be black with the non-conforming logos blacked out. (You may wear "grandfathered" stuff [stuff purchased before joining the team] with blacked out logos, but for any grandfathered equipment you have to produce a receipt showing the date of purchase in order to use your old stuff.) This isn’t that difficult. I even saw someone who’s been on the team for a few years wearing clothing from a PREVIOUS team!

This is incredibly risky behavior! We run the risk of a sponsor coming across a picture of one of us and seeing us wearing a set of shoe covers from a COMPETITOR! I know that if I was shelling out a 5% discount on clothing purchases, I would be offended by that sort of lax attention to branding. This situation needs to be remedied immediately before any of our sponsors see these pictures. We’re just one Google image search away from disaster.

Anyone who was photographed this weekend wearing off-brand clothing needs to contact the photographers who took the pictures and ask them to remove those photos from the internet. I realize that some photographers will be reluctant to take these photos down, so if they refuse, you should threaten that you will issue a cease and desist order against them. I don’t want to have to play hardball in this situation, but we cannot risk alienating our sponsors. They offer us product discounts, and in a real world sense that adds up to real money when any of us purchase their stuff.

I’m not going to call out anyone personally in this email, but I think the guilty parties know who they are. I expect this situation to be remedied by Wednesday. Unless you want to start paying full retail for your recovery drink mixes, the choice is up to you.