The only time cyclists are cool is when they are on their bikes hammering away. Have you ever seen a team presentation or promotional material for professional cyclists? Nothing in sport is less intimidating. Football players look vicious posing in their under armor, baseball players intimidate with their face paint and cannon arms, and basketball players show off their arm tattoos. Somehow, cyclists can’t pull it off, even with their muscular legs. I’ll use the big dog as a prime example. Lance looks like a badass riding his bike, but when he dismounts his representation of bipedal locomotion is far different from what I see in other humans. Like Sampson losing his hair, fish out of water, and Superman without his cape, take away the bike and you make cyclists mortal. Perhaps it is because of the ungainly effect of walking with cycling shoes. It is impossible to portray toughness while walking with cleats on. This act is only rivaled in absurdity by clodding around in ski boots.
In addition to the walk, cyclists’ uncoolness is further exacerbated by lycra clothing. Somehow track athletes can maintain their coolness in tight fitting clothes, but cyclists can’t. There is no good body type for cycling clothes. You either look too fat or too thin. The clothing looks appropriate when you are hunched over on a bike stamping out fierce cadence, but once you are off the bike it becomes a public indecency. The only place I feel comfortable in bike clothes is a bike shop or a race. Other than during a very very short period in the 80s, cycling clothing in public is a no no.
So what can be done to make cyclists hip off the bike? Mountain bikers have successfully duped others by hiding the lycra under baggies. Yet, once you hop back on the bike you aren’t cool with these in the road cycling realm. In essence, what works in a world on the bike won’t work off the bike. Two parallell bizarro worlds exist. Thus, there is no solution but to remain in one world at a time and hope that no one sees you in transition.
Leave a Comment