No pictures of me I promise, but cycling is a weird sport - in as much as you look weird. Now there should be no reason why people should feel the need to join in with this absurdity, but they do; I do. Nowhere outside a fetish club (I'm told) would you ever see so much tight fitting clothing. Even if you wore trunks this tight (see below) in a swimming pool, you would be subjected to ridicule if not an outright ban for frightening the grannies doing their aquaerobics.
http://www.thecultureconcept.com/circle/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Perhaps-a-reason-for-the-anti-lycra-brigade.jpg
I wouldn't mind kowtowing to my need to conform, but then you start doing a bit of online shopping. Cycling tops - let's start there. I thought I'd pick three up, maybe a long sleeved one for the approaching autumnal weather. How much? What is basically a Lycra t-shirt can't be worth £75 surely? They've made a mistake on the website; either that or it's woven from the hair of medieval virgins. One of the two. Bib shorts. These ridiculous items are basically shorts with an extra bit that goes over your shoulders, presumably so that your shorts don't fall down when you are riding out of the saddle and cause a major RTA. Oh, and a decent pair seems to start at around £100. Fuck that, as my Mum never said. So I shopped around a bit and found some cheaper alternatives in the sales. Of course, I'm now suffering from 1st world guilt (and the sage advice of a former work colleague of mine: 'Buy cheap and buy twice' that keeps going round in my head like a mantra) because they were no doubt stitched together in some horrific sweat shop somewhere.
So while the bike feels great and my riding is really developing (I did 43 miles yesterday - hooray for me) the mental and physical benefits are offset an axis of evil: conformity, shame and guilt. Bugger.
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