Sunday, May 25, 2008

Nandrolone???




Nandrolone aka Deca-Durabolin is a substance associated by most with Mark McGuire and the Bash Brothers era of steroid fueled baseball. So I was pretty surprised to see a Giordana wind vest with this name. Like cars, cycling gear ends up with some pretty oddball names, but naming a piece of your gear after a word with no other meaning but "performance enhancing drug" is an odd choice at best. About as good marketing as trying to sell a "No-va" in Mexico. Perhaps they will roll out an HGH bib short or an EPO-tic jersey??? Although maybe based on the latest Giro drug bust a Viagra-issimo jersey will be next.
Cycling has a hard enough time getting out from under the shadow of drugs without the companies that make cycling gear pulling bone headed moves like this.
I am not a Giordana basher. They make good gear and obviously are down for the cause. They even make rad shirts like this or this, but how the nandrolone slipped past them is beyond me.
Some serious investigative reporting(ok one email) has informed me that nandrolone is the name the fabric manufacturer gave to the fabric used in the jacket. Makes sense, just not common sense. If I made vegan shoes and my supplier called his fabric "veal" or something, I would change the name of the shoe and keep the name of the fabric on the down low. But what do I know?

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