The Whale Shark is the biggest nonmammalian vertebrate* on the planet, rivaling the dinosaurs for size. How do you feed yourself when you’re that huge without loading up on carbs all the time? Easy, you swim around with your mouth wide open for 22 hours a day and hope enough food swims in there to take the edge off the hunger pangs. Cyclists face a metaphorically similar challenge when it comes to loading up the lungs with enough air to support our ravenous hunger for more V.
While the civilized person doesn’t normally wander about with their jaw agape as though missing a chromosome, the Velominatus – the most civilized of Cyclists – always rides with a slack jaw. Better for gulping down air while helping yourself to heaping portions of The V.
The sad reality is that when riding uphill, one can either suffer or one can climb off. There is nothing in the middle, no Option C. There may be some (perceived) degree of control over how intense the suffering is, but one of the most important discoveries a Cyclist will ever make is that riding uphill at a moderate pace is almost as hard as riding uphill à bloc. The question becomes one of sustainment of the effort; how much oxygen can be supplied to the blood so the muscles can keep firing. The answer is that you can be as strong as Hercules but if you don’t concentrate on your breathing to get as much air into the lungs as possible, it won’t be very long before Scotty is calling up from the engine room with some bleak news.
Enter the Whale Shark breathing technique: open you mouth wide, and hoover up as much air as possible as you make your way uphill. Ullrich was a champion of this approach, dropping the jaw like the loader on a tractor, cramming air down the hatch and into the furnace. His fellow countryman Tony Martin has taken over the mantle with possibly the most realistic Whaleshark impersonation I’ve ever seen. But this is a technique as old as the sport itself; even the most casual browsing of a photo archive will show riders from all eras riding with their mouths hanging wide open.
The idea here is improve your breathing while avoiding looking like a yawning chimp. Here are a few pointers.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo Galleries/frank@velominati.com/Whale Shark/”/]
*Nonmammalian vertebrate? Do we need that distinction? Are there any competing nonmammalian invertebrates? I’d hate to run into a 21 metric ton bug.
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@wiscot
My 15 yo son refers to it as my sippy cup. I'd slap him but he's 6' 3"
@frank
have discussed this with the VMH and she's not for it. But after seeing Specialized wind tunnel video (not that we listen to them), I'm thinking it may be some free seconds. Also will help me look more fantastic.
problems are:
i have trouble keeping up with face shaving
just had a foot op to make me more aero so fitness will be declining for some time.
That's my cheaters skin suit - normal shorts plus a "Skins" brand compression top.
@Rom
Please! Shaving guns should surpass shaving face.
@Rom
Bullshit. First, its a Rule #11 violation. Second, she just thinks she doesn't like it. Do it and both of you will get over it.
Oh my Merckx, the whinging here made me black out.
@Teocalli
Way to dish it out!! Love fowl weather suffering!
@wiscot
Yes, true.
Two things: 1. Ris is BY FAR the ugliest tour winner in history (by any measure). The jersey therefore is in keeping with that standard and 2. when your hemoglobin is that high (supposedly 64) you get sludging of blood flow in the brain which leaves you open to questionable judgements (no shit, it aint good for you). Evidently the folks fitting him also had inappropriately high Hgb's too it would seem.
@Ccos
And don't even get me started on the fucking ugly grey terry toweling knee warmers Riis wore. I tell ya, if Jaques Goddet or Felix Levitan had still been around in the 90s, they'd have thrown Riis off the race for wearing that shit. Hell, they kicked Michel Pollentier off for being so ugly in 1978 and having a riding style that made Froome-dog look graceful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpu9Q_FDKFI
Well, the bulb full of someone else's piss in the armpit might have been a contributing factor, but I still read that Levitan (who introduces the Champs Elysees finish in 1975 and the polka dot jersey), still didn't want a bandy-legged wee Belgian riding down there in triumph.
Oh, and check out the team car for Pollentier: two guys riding serious shotgun and they ignore the gendarme telling them to pull off before the finish. That's Flandria for you.
@Rom
Get yourself one of these (for the guns):
Yes, a machine that has a multitude of spinning tweezers that rips the hair out at the roots. Don't you dare suggest it's too painful because I'll just say HTFU and point to Rule #5. What, can't handle a little pain in the legs? The good lady has no problem with using one. You're pathetic!!
It takes me 30-40 minutes once a fortnight to keep the guns smooth and soft. Shaving is a waste of time and money and gives inferior results. Best of all, at once a fortnight it's not very time hungry and even the day before the hair you have growing is softer (it's newly grown with a nice rounded tip - not stubble) sparse (not all hair grow back at once) and lighter in colour so without close inspection they look hairless.
I admit it doesn't feel like a very manly thing to use and I when I use it I lock the bedroom door. Mostly because the one time my kids saw me doing it they stood at the door giggling for 10min! On the other hand ripping the hair out wholesale by the bunch full seems a rather more macho way to remove the hair than using a nancy blade.
@Puffy
Looks like something this guy uses. Fuk me.
@frank
@frank
Please tell me that the ride your doing in the picture was not preceded by a swim, then followed by a run ?!?