The Tufty Collection

Daa-daah!  Fanfare of trumpets, it's the Tufty Collection!

Yes, lead by our fashionista, the lovely Leelu (chorus of "Graeme Brown?" from all around and much Cougarish giggling), it has been decreed that Tufts Are Back for this season, yay!

Photo: Gerry Schmit.  Haircut: knife and fork

At the very start of the year, there was terrible news: Andy Schleck had a really brutal haircut for the Leopard-Trek presentation.

I mean, look at it!!

Where are all the floppy bits?

Where is the length on top, required to be pulled through the helmet by Jakob with a crochet hook?

Where are the cute sticky-out bits round the back?

No wonder he looked such a glum bunny for most of the time.

Andy, pet, go back to the old hairdresser, would you? This new one is a bit too drastic.

So, with fear and trembling, we wondered if we would ever see such wonderful Tufti-ness as we had in former days.

However, in an exclusive interview with our Schleckland reporter, Leelu confirmed the following:

"Ladies, the verdict is in and yes the tufty squirrel look is making a comeback to the peloton for 2011. The trend is taking off, but the fashion-conscious-cyclist should take note not to 'over-do' it."

Pausing only to chug a bottle of beer, shear a sheep and reverse her pick-up truck over a cardboard cut-out of Alberto Contador, the charming, elegant, leopard-ear-wearing  Leelu  continued "The tufty squirrel should be subtle and preferably worn with a smile."

Examples were given, to demonstrate the correct usage of Tufts, and - brace yourselves - there was even a demonstration of How To Over-Do Tuftage.  Yes, shocking!

Firstly, we have the Side-Tuft.

As is clearly visible in this shot, the Tuft is pulled through the helmet and laid gently to one side.

Gentleman in the peleton can of course choose if they are going to dress their Tuft to the left or to the right.

(Eli, stop sniggering, I can hear you all the way down here.)

Product may be applied to hold the Tuft at the chosen angle: we recommend J. Fuglsang as stocking the widest range of product.

Next we have The Scruff: not every member of the peleton will be able to achieve this look, it is essential to combine random Tuftage, copious amounts of sweat,  and some glorious back-lighting.

NB it may not always be possible to achieve this level of lighting when actually cycling, but bribing the camera-bike to shine a headlamp on you might help.

This is, of course, only to be attempted at UCI 1.1 or 2.1 races, where race radios are - at the time of writing - still allowed to be worn.

Here we have the UpDo, showing great root-lift and excellent styling.

A Danish henchman is almost essential for this style.

Please note the effect of extra Tuftiness emerging from the back of the helmet - yes! Those flowing locks are growing back at last! (Either that, or Andy's having extensions: well, you have to do something with all that stuff you fish out of the plug-hole.)

Aha! The Mohawk!

Only for the most serious TuftyMen, this effect is very difficult to pull off, and requires continuous adjustment to maintain the crest effect.

Again, product may be required.

This is also, as Leelu commented, a perfect example of a Tufty Squirrel worn with a smile.

Now a word of warning: How Not To Do The Tufty Squirrel.

Too much!

Too much!

And too grey!!!!!!

I'm not even mentioning the patch of what appears to be pink bare skin showing through the left-hand "nostril" hole, shudder.

Returning quickly to better things, back to Our Andy:

This contribution is from Kara, and as she comments, could possibly be considered borderline "overdoing it", but as it's accompanied by a smile, well, we'll allow it, just this once.

Actually that could well be a grimace of pain, rather than a smile...

... but it demonstrates a masterful use of the Tuft, with equal distribution and very neat placement.





 

 Some riders are born Tufties: some learn how to acquire The Tuft: some, alas, can never attain true Tuftiness.

Here, Our Andy demonstrates Ultimate Tuftiness while casually blowing his nose, while poor Boring Bertie Contador labours behind, bereft of Tufts, with flat, boring (probably greasy) hair.  Not that I'm biaised against him or anything, noooooo.

"Admiring my rear, ladies?"

"Nooo, not us, we're just admiring your Tuftiness, honest!"

Here, Unndy demonstrates Total Tuft, including back hair, Mohawk and Random Tuftage.


And my final thought on the subject for the moment: this is another reason to hate TimeTrial button mushroom helmets, which utterly ruin all attempts at Tuftiness.