A couple of years back at the road worlds at Zolder, I asked one of the UCI board members about the collar and arm band issue. I expressed my opinion that it was bad enough the UCI moved the road worlds to a near meaningless date on the race calendar, but that it seemed half the peleton had CdM stripes on their arm bands. He stated that while the use of the rainbow stripes in the middle/body of the jersey is limited to use only by the current world champion, and only for use only in the discipline to which the jersey was won, collars and neck bands fell out of the scope of their scrutiny. Hence you have situations like the one Ray Green put forth of a pro road rider wearing CdM bands on his jersey to commemorate his junior track world championship.
Putting national champion or even national colors is not the exclusive domain of modern riders. There are plenty of instances where you can find this in the post-WWII era.
Personally, I would love to see the stripes limited to the discipline and category of the rider wearing the CdM stripes. It would make sorting out questionable jerseys a whole lot easier. However, I doubt very much the UCI really cares about placating collectors.
Brett Horton San Francisco, California
<<<Ray Green wrote: <snip> I think De Vlaeminck went too far having cyclo cross bands on his road jersey but things have got worse since his day. I'm sure that one of the Aussie pros has rainbow bands on his road jerseythat he won as a junior on the track !National championship bands are now univeral. See Axel Merckx for example. For me it should be limited to the discipline and category you are currently riding in. So in a pro road race only former pro road champions would have rainbow collar and cuffs. I make that five or six riders eligible. Lets keep things elitist!>>>
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