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.
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All this skinny/fatty talk is getting way too serious.
@Frank,
Maybe use your status as Cycling's Up and Coming media star and invite one of these former Belgian pros to weigh in on the matter. That's Nico Mattan (2005 gent -wevelgem winner), and classics superstar Eddy Plankaert (shown setting the world record for a wooden bike if my Dutch is correct). Two of my favorites.
....and another shot of Nico warming up for a sportive with a Belgian Gatorade. Proper glass too.
@fignons barber
Belgian Gatorade!! Instant classic!!
When I was rowing, I rowed lightweight (72kg and under crew average) and found out the hard way why, at 6 foot tall, that's a pretty shit idea - one, it's not that easy to shed muscle. Two, we had to drop our body fat so low we got really slow, and probably needed about 3 years of training to function properly at that weight. Three, we would be racing against people around 5"8 - 5"10 tall, who the lightweight category was actually designed for, who could keep muscle and a bit of body fat, and race rings around us, and even with more time to train, they'd still beat us. And lastly, we probably had a lot in common with folk with eating disorders - obsessive exercising to drop weight, 500 grams of lettuce for lunch, for guys our size to maintain weight we had to be on a permanent cutting diet.
All in all we realised it was pretty fucking stupid and a lot more fun to row heavyweight, eat all the things and drink all the beer, and actually go fast and compete. There's a sweet spot out there for living as an amateur athlete, being able to function at work/life?bike, and still crush souls.
And that photo has to be taken with a fish eye lens so it'll be distorted to shit.
@Ron
Living in Cardiff I often come face to face with pro/international standard rugby players. They are the only people who ever make me feel dainty. I queued in a cafe beside ex All Black and Cardiff Blues player Xavier Rush; he's about 6'2" so not freakishly tall, but the guy is built like the proverbial concrete khazi. His shoulders must be 50% wider than mine.
And on the subject of rubbing shoulders with legends, I was on my way out of Arms Park after one match and found myself walking next to Gareth Edwards and Gerald Davies. They were both walking out with the fans, signing autographs and chatting. Great to see.
@RobSandy
Awesome! I saw Edwards and Davies play for Wales against Scotland at Murrayfield in the 70s. Is there a rugby hall of fame? If there is, they are automatically in. Mind you, the players in general today are much, much bigger than they were up until the 90s when the game started going all-pro. Most of the 60s, 70s, 80s players looked like regular guys (depending upon position of course). Of course, now they're all pros and train like crazy. Davies and Edwards were amateurs and had "jobs" and anything that smelled of being pro was punishable - or you just went to the dark side for the money (aka rugby league.)
@wiscot
and no pads, or helmets for that matter.
@wiscot
Yes, there is, and Gareth Edwards was one of the first inductees with Gerald Davies following closely behind. There's a vast difference in the game since they played but there's a strong school of thought that Edwards would be just as good if he played in the modern era. He was that good.
@RobSandy
The times changing is interesting. Somehow I doubt that the Barry John school of tackling would work these days, great though he was in his day.
@Teocalli
What's that? 'Run out of the way and leave it to someone else?'.
I see Barry around Cardiff quite regularly. He's a very keen and dedicated drinker these days.