Columbian pro-cyclist Rigoberto Uran looks a bit like Mick Jagger. From a distance. On a foggy day.
It’s the large fleshy features and the shiny rock star hair.
I’m not aware that he’s ever had chance to cavort with Marianne Faithful or play golf with Bill Clinton, but I can certainly imagine him pulling a few Jagger moves at the Cannondale-Drapac Christmas party.
I, for one, would pay good money to see him strutting his stuff to Honkey Tonk Woman, and recreating Mick’s patented half-monkey-half-toddler dance moves.
Beyond his looks, Uran is also known for being not quite as good as you think he is.
Which sounds harsh, and just to be clear I’m well aware that as a cyclist I’m not fit to lace his Sidi’s, but he’s a Columbian climber. And those of us who’ve been watching cycling for a while tend to put Columbian climbers up on a pedestal.
When the road heads skywards we expect super-human feats.
He’s twice finished 2nd overall at the Giro d’Italia (2013 & 2014), and beyond that has delivered a whole bucketful of near misses: three times 3rd at Il Lombardia; 5th place at Liege-Bastogne-Liege; 3rd overall at Tirreno-Adriatico; 7th at Strade Bianchi…
The list goes on.
He a top cyclist, who doesn’t win much.
But we forgive him, because the thing we really love about about Uran is his name. It’s Rigoberto Uran for short, but to those of us who politely give him his full recognition it’s Rigoberto Uran Uran.
(So good they…blah, blah…you get it.)
Language, at times, can have an almost mystical power. Some say the double ‘Uran’ is the key to Rigoberto’s talent. And if that’s true (which, obviously, it definitely is…), then he needs to gamble.
He needs to make that final sacrifice, take the plunge, and boldy go where no cyclist has been before.
He needs to acquire a third ‘Uran.’
As this piece in the New Yorker explains, the names people are given can have a genuine positive impact on their outcomes in life. Substitute ‘life’ for ‘bike races’, and that third Uran becomes a no-brainer.
A Columbian cyclist, who looks like Mick Jagger, called Rigoberto Uran Uran Uran, would be irresistible.
He would surely sweep all before him.
I also quite like the idea that multiple surnames might catch on. There’s something very pleasing about the idea that the Italian Daniel Oss might adopt this idea.
Daniel Oss Oss would definitely be my new favourite cyclist.
(Image: By filip bossuyt (131 uran is moe) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
ROAD THEORY 
Brilliant post!
I don’t think it has to be that foggy to see the Jagger-vibes.
There are several parallels between the face Uran makes on a climb to Sestriere and Jagger after playing a three hour set with Keith Richards.
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Thanks Mike. Sometimes he looks like a confused schoolboy but you’re right – often he’s a dead ringer for Jagger!
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