I don’t get it. A few years ago, some father who owns a big corporate company, gave his son-in-law a schnazzy upper level management job in charge of the making and distributing of fangled widgets. The fact is he really doesn’t do anything, everybody hates him, and the company would run well without him. Oh, they also sponsored some sort of team.

Since the son-in-law does nothing all day at the office, he decided one dreadful afternoon he had to do something to leave his legacy before his wife drop kicked his sorry ass, via a backflip, out of the house. So, he decided that he would change the name of the team. For the sake of this article we will call the team the “Spokes”. But instead of just the team name “Spokes”, he called them “The Spokes Presented by Tires”. Of course this is instead of the phrase: “The Spokes, Sponsored by Tires”.

Since Tires never really “presents” Spokes, but they actually “sponsor” Spokes, this has torn a very large riff in the space time continuum of the universe as we know (or don’t know) it. Son-in-laws who do nothing all day, have no creativity, and everybody hates them, have banded subconsciously together to keep this moronic phrase perpetuating for no good reason!!

It sounds stupid! It doesn’t make sense! It doesn’t stand out! No one cares! “Ohhhh”, they say, “we have to do it because the sponsor wants it that wayyyyy”. BALONY (sweat ball dripping off my nose)!!!

Then they have the before, during and after show, and of course, “presented by”. What the hell does that mean anyway? They go the Lipitor® post race show, presented by Viqagra®, sponsored by Cialis®, hosted by Jello friggen Pudding Pops® !!!!!!!! (Meantime you couldn’t get a live or replay of a European classic bike race for all the Tylenol® in the world!)

Cyclists make no money professionally in comparison to almost anything. Why we must endure this “presented” torturous, bed wetting phrase to further embarrass us is just wrong. However, the fallout has just begun. Yes that’s right. Them little buggers are multiplying, graduating and marrying rich sweeties. Some father-in-laws will give in and hire the little do-nothings, and soon they will be subconsciously linked together with others of their kind, changing the names too all our great teams, both big and small. Like grease on a chain on a Cervelo R3, it keeps on coming, sticky, dirty and annoying, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

Till next ride
Uncle Chad, (presented by Bicycle.net)