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Body Dysmorphia

These aren't the men you're looking for. Photo: Tim De Waele

I am thrilled to announce that for the first time in my life, my chest measurement is smaller than my hip measurement, an accomplishment I’m not sure many men around the world would be proud to admit. A Cyclist has no use for an upper body, we’re not going about lifting things with our arms; we are the sort of people who do all our lifting with our legs. We just need enough to hold the handlebars and pull from time to time while chewing the bar tape; beyond that, upper bodies are little more than extra weight and I’ve got more of that than I need already.

When I boasted about this tremendous feat to a few work colleagues, none of them showed any appreciation for my accomplishment whatsoever. Mostly they looked at me askance, not unlike how my dog looks at me when I’m talking to her in complete sentences. I could sense them resisting the temptation to start rotating their heads until they fell over like she does. The most any of them could muster was joking about how I must look at the beach, at which point I returned the favor of not having a clue what they were on about. Honestly, I’m much more worried about looking good in my skinsuit than I am about looking good in my mankini.

The first thing one observes when meeting Pro Cyclists is how tiny they are; they look like normal folks on TV but when you see them in real life they look like birds with a gland problem. Alpine ski racers also look like normal people on TV, but when you see them in person you realize they are thrice the size of a normal person, plus two. Either of Bode Miller’s arms are bigger than my right gun, the bigger of the two.

Kate Moss said that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Apparently even Kate Moss couldn’t go her whole life without saying something sensible eventually. Being light on a bike is an amazing feeling, and we sacrifice all socially acceptable aesthetics in this pursuit. To be skinny is also to look good on a bike; hunching over a top tube chewing our handlebars isn’t a terribly flattering posture to begin with, one not made any more appealing with a gut protruding into the void.

I’ve never heard a Cyclist say they are happy with their weight, or that they feel they are skinny enough. No matter how skinny we are, we are still too fat. Most Cyclists greet each other with a little pinch on the arm to gauge one another’s weight – the first intimidation of the ride or the first bit of morale, depending on which side of the pinch you are. “Cyclists’ Sizing” is a phenomenon where a rider needs to wear their bibshorts a size bigger than their jersey. This is the maximum body image goal of the Cyclist, to have massive guns and a tiny torso.

I’m on the train, but I’m not there yet. To hasten the journey, I fancy the 5am Spanish Turbo Session in full leggings, long sleeve jersey, and casquette in order to kick start my metabolism in the morning. And then I skip breakfast and lunch. And dinner, if I can manage it. I prefer to cut calories out of my food diet than out of my drinking diet; success is all about setting attainable goals.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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frank says:

Jan 15 2016 at 7:04 pm

@RobSandy

@wiscot

@Teocalli

Yeah, I’ve heard that too. I try not to eat after 8pm at the latest. Biggest issue is the long winter evenings. Too cold and dark to get outside and the warmth of the house and the TV are just too condusive to snacking mindlessly. (Not that I do, cough, cough . . .)

Doesn’t count as a snack if you have it with a beer. Fact.

Yes, and dark chocolate promotes weight loss as well, so have that after dinner along with your digestif.
frank says:

Jan 15 2016 at 7:08 pm

@wilburrox

@RobSandy

@wiscot

@Teocalli

Yeah, I’ve heard that too. I try not to eat after 8pm at the latest. Biggest issue is the long winter evenings. Too cold and dark to get outside and the warmth of the house and the TV are just too condusive to snacking mindlessly. (Not that I do, cough, cough . . .)

Doesn’t count as a snack if you have it with a beer. Fact.

Precisely. And make it a good dark tasty Guinness and it qualifies as a healthy meal in prep for whatever the next day will bring.

The whole business of going to bed hungry? Too many people in the world do that due to unfortunate circumstances.

I can't tell you how much hate mail I got as a result of this article, accusing me of promoting anorexia and bulimia which, as a matter of science, I'm not sure I can promote simultaneously.

But yes, people starve. Doesn't mean we ease that pain by use being fat fucks.

Going to bed hungry has been the single most effective way I've found to lose weight that I'm willing to engage in, because I'm sure as fuck not cutting out the booze.
frank says:

Jan 15 2016 at 7:26 pm

@Amanda

I find that while it’s a struggle on a personal level, it’s also hard on a social level. “Oh, you ride your bike so much, you can eat whatever you like! Why won’t you have some more of X food?”

Because the lighter I am, the better I perform on that bike! When I started I was 5 ft 6 and 11 stone, and it was hellish. It’s so much easier at 9 stone. I sometimes point out my guns and that usually stops them, but it can be mentally draining to hear such things.

I don't understand why you're carrying all those stones around. Leave them at home, problem solved.

@wiscot

Not to hijack the thread, but what race or event are Boonen and his buddies at? A crit? Can’t be a major stage race, can it? It’s just that seeing three top pros getting ready or cleaning up (I think it’s the latter) on the steps of a building on a sidewalk is pretty cool. Wouldn’t see yer fancy NBA or MLB boys doing that.

Tour de San Luis, 2014. Which is another way of saying it was during "fat season". (I only know that from the photo's metadata.)

@wiscot

@Ron

@wiscot

Not to hijack the thread, but what race or event are Boonen and his buddies at? A crit? Can’t be a major stage race, can it? It’s just that seeing three top pros getting ready or cleaning up (I think it’s the latter) on the steps of a building on a sidewalk is pretty cool. Wouldn’t see yer fancy NBA or MLB boys doing that.

Axel Merckx Kermesse, hoping if they sit long enough on his front steps he’ll come out, with Eddy?

And YES that is something I love about smaller sports, like cycling. While we consider them gods, they’re still accessible gods. Too many pro athletes live in odd fantasy worlds where they’re so far removed from reality because of the money involved.

It’s one of the things I love about the Packers. They have a tradition that at training camp they ride kids’ bikes to practice and the kid carries the helmet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4pLeSPBYo

Ignore the Rules violations and the general “wobbliness” of the riders!

They can also take the piss out of themselves pretty fucking well!
frank says:

Jan 15 2016 at 7:31 pm

@Ron

You are in the wrong state.

@scaler911

It is funny how media can change your perception of the people you’re looking at or watching on TV, or in photos. Living in Portland, and having a job that’s allowed me to meet some professional basketball players, and a couple pro footballers, you really don’t get a sense of just how tall (or fucking huge) those athletes are. I ran into Scotty Pippen at a Mini Mart one morning, around 10am, and in addition to just how tall he was (and holy Merckx, his hands were like baseball gloves), I had to give him a ribbing about his choice of snacks- a ‘roller’ corndog, and a diet soda. Took care of a offensive lineman for the Bills, just after the Super Bowl- Couldn’t put the bed rails up he was so huge- not fat, just a truckload of muscle that would crush folk in our chosen sport (but of course, when watching on TV you think “well, I don’t know how that linebacker got through, I’da just ran right over him.” Nonsense)

Based on a number of “Ideal Weight Calculators”, I should have weighed between 156- 167lbs (for my height 5’10”). Right. I’da lost my shit if I got anywhere near 155. 145 with a peaking weight of 142 was where I lived through my 20’s.

But, I’m not in my 20’s anymore…………..

Some of those football centers do in fact look rather weighty, though.

TV is the great neutralizer, it seems. In lots of ways?
piwakawaka says:

Jan 15 2016 at 8:44 pm

@frank

hate mail? seriously? FFS. Fat cunts.
scaler911 says:

Jan 15 2016 at 9:27 pm

@frank

Indeed. There's a few beer belly's in the bunch. But if you lined up against them in the 40M, if you're lucky, it'd be a tie.

That said, if you and the center of- insert either your favorite, or the name of a, NFL/ College/ high school football team you know, "x" here- were to ride up Haleakala- we all know how that'd end.
Amanda says:

Jan 16 2016 at 12:28 am

@frank

Merckx knows where we got the whole stone thing from. Wikipedia tells me it's an old European trade thing and that a stone is roughly 6.5kg.
Teocalli says:

Jan 16 2016 at 12:56 am

@Amanda

A Stone is actually 14 Pounds (Lbs) which is 16 Ounces (Oz) which is 16 Drams (Dr) which is 27.344 Grains (Gr). Though only in the Avoirdupois measurements, Troys and Apothecaries are a bit different. All perfectly logical.
Teocalli says:

Jan 16 2016 at 1:00 am

@frank

You all know how old that shit makes us sound, right?

For some of us it starts making us sound young again.
wilburrox says:

Jan 16 2016 at 3:39 am

With a steady climb since Oct I now weigh as much as I've last weighed in Feb '13. I've enjoyed this winter very much thank you. My plan is to race myself back in to shape. Quickly. Let's consider it training heavy ! It'll do me good I'm sure.

Mind if I send ya some hate mail @frank ?? Hah... just for reminding me while I was having good fun getting fat that it's time to get my a** back in to shape ? Yea, as if I needed the reminder.

Cheers all