The Mumping of the Musettes

Note for non-UK readers: "mumping" means asking for something of low value for free. Not stealing it, or demanding with menaces, just asking, sometimes slightly cheekily.

Now read on.....

Well, we did it: LLB and I went to two stages of the Tour of Britain this year, and fulfilled my ambition to attend a start, and a finish, of a stage race. Adding those to last year, when we did a mid-point of a stage, a Crit, and a Time Trial (right to the end, in the rain), that only leaves a Mountain stage to be attended, and we've done everything!

My additional not-so-secret agenda for the ToB was to get another musette or two, to add to my lovely Leopard Trek one.

In case you've forgotten, at last year's Tour of Britain I eventually managed to get one from the Leopard bus, with much fear and trembling, and a lot of pushing from LLB ("Go on, ask them!" "Nooooo, I'm too shy!" " Go on, get up there!" "Nooooo! I can't!" "Go on, just ask them, think what your fangirls would say if you didn't even go and ask." "Oh all right.")

As soon as I got home, the musette was converted into a handy shopping bag:



...and has been in almost daily use every since. And no, not once, NOT ONCE! has anyone tapped me on the shoulder and said "Hey, nice Leopard bag!". So disappointing.

Anyway, (*pauses to wipe away a tear. Surely I am not the only Andy Schleck fan in the area??*) there we were at Powis Castle, Stage 6, nice and early, ready for the start, with time to kill hanging around the Team buses.

Team UK Youth were there, my "underdog" team for the Tour, so I waited until they didn't seem to be over-busy, picked out the youngest chap on duty, then approached them.

"Errrr, 'scuse me, I know you're busy, but-" (*big eyes*) "...I was wondering if there'd be any chance of having a musette - an empty one?" (*rising inflection, faint Leelu tone in my voice*) "I'd love one as a souvenir..." *voice trails off, bats eyelashes.*

It worked! The nice mechanic told me to "'Ang on a min," grovelled around in the back of the van and brought back an somewhat battered cotton bag. "Ooo!" I squealed like a complete girly, "Thank you very much!"



The nice mechanic leaned in, confidentially. "We call them the Bag For Life" he grinned. "Why?" I replied, with a slightly confused look. "Because they are so big," he said, "they're much bigger than everyone else's!"

Second note for non-UK readers: supermarkets in the UK, in an effort to wean us away from using millions of flimsy plastic carrier bags, now make what they call the Bag For Life, which is a bigger carrier bag, made of very sturdy plastic. The idea is that instead of lots of free flimsy ones, you pay 10p for a Bag For Life, use it instead of the free flimsy ones, then when it gets tatty, the store will swap it, free of charge, for a new one.

And yes indeed, the UK Youth musettes are huge! And please note the two handles, just like a normal shopping bag - clearly these bags have been designed and/or supplied by a company who have never seen a cycle race in their life. One strap, guys, one long strap so they can swing it over their necks, remember?!

Also, you might notice that it's a bit crumpled - yes, it was a second-hand bag, with mud and a partial footprint on it, possibly some sweat stains (not quite sure) and it contained some empty wrappers.

Awww, that's so sweet, UK Youth re-use their musettes!

Oh no - a horrible thought occurs to me - what if they were one bag short at the feed station? They are a charity, they have a really, really small budget....oops, perhaps I'd better make a donation after the race? Anyway, this bag is therefore ready for use, once it's had a quick wash.

Next was Garmin: I felt a bit sorry for them - they were the first big team in the parking area, crowds of people all around, someone decided to move one of their team cars and crash! it hit the other team car. Gales of laughter from the crowd, lots of glum faces from the mechanics. Oh dear, left in charge of the cars for half an hour and look what happens? Two dented bumpers. Oops.

Then the Deathstar arrived (Sky's big team coach, so called by Dave Millar, who is, we can guess, ever so slightly jealous) and the whole crowd flocked over to it, like metal filings to a magnet.

It was a bit sad for Garmin, really. One minute they were the "big" team, their posh coach and natty matching cars (now with matching dented bumpers. mwah hah hah!) utterly overshadowing the UK Youth's tiny little white van and odd mix of cars.

Next minute, cries of "Oooh, Sky!" and everyone had fled.

So I repeated the dialogue above, and the nice Garmin mechanic went round to their road van and found me a brand new musette:

"There you are," he said, "seeing as you asked so nicely."

So nicely? All I said was - well, you've already read the dialogue. Please and thank you did come into it, along with a smile: but it rather made me wonder how other people ask for things. LLB, when I reported this later, said that most people probably just stomp up to them and say, "gimme a bidon, mate," or something like that.



Here it is, very similar indeed to the Leopard Trek one, smartly printed on nylon, none of your rough calico bags for these big teams.

Next on the hit-list was the Orica GreenEdge bus. My third ambition for this Tour being, of course, to do the "Here's my num-bah, Call me maybe!" dance and get a response.

Sorry, did you miss that?

Where have you been!

With huge thanks to Brisbane Gal for bringing this to my attention, the Orica GreenEdge team did a spoof video of themselves miming along to "Call me, maybe", having seen the video made by the Miami Dolphins cheerleaders. Oddly, LLB was familiar with the cheerleader version, but hadn't seen the Orica one.

It's brilliant, and as Brisbane Gal quite rightly said, that's what we want to see, a team having fun. Fun! Our poor Leopards used to have fun, but not any more *sniffle*.

In case you missed it, try this: or just type "Orica GreenEdge call me maybe" into google...

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEvX_vKDYEw&w=560&h=315]

So I bravely made my way up to the Orica bus (well, LLB had to give me a bit of a shove, actually), asked, but was told they were too busy, and to come back after the start.

Oh well, fair enough, lots to do, race to attend.. so we left them to it.

After the start, of course, by the time we'd made our way back through the crowds, all the Team buses were long gone...

...but on Sunday at Guildford, we located the Team Bus area, and I tried again. This time, success! They brought me out a musette, and proudly pointed to the front of it:



If you can see it, there's a piece of tape with Daryl on it.

"Daryl!" they beamed at me ("they" being the two rather italian mechanics, in case you were wondering).

I must have looked a little confused.

"Daryl Impey!" they chorused.

Yes, I know who Daryl is, but why are you giving me his musette? He's not even in this race.

Oh well, who cares! For your general information, I can tell you that the Orica GreenEdge musettes are a bit of a disappointment, being a) quite a bit smaller than Leopard/Garmin, and b) made of a woven nylon fabric that has a very odd texture to it.

Well, I won't be using that one for shopping. Pity, as it's quite the prettiest one - apart from the Leopard one, of course. *she says, loyally.*

Here we are then, a selection of freshly mumped musettes:



So there you go, all ambitions achieved. "All" ambitions? Yes, I did the "call me maybe" gesture to the Orica team car as they rolled away at the start, and the driver returned the gesture! Success!