Why Bicyclists wear spandex

So everyone outside the know makes the odd assumption that cyclists wear tight clothes "spandex" because it is aerodynamic.

It's true that wearing "spandex" from neck to knee is somewhat aerodynamic, but there are other major considerations going on here.

In the broad scale, the human body is very much not aerodynamic. Aerodynamics are important when cycling at high speed, above 20mph, but bike races are not won at high speeds. When cyclists are racing at high speeds, there's ususally a large pack of riders who ride in other rider's slipstream. They're usually won on long, steep hills....where even the fastest guy might be riding at 12mph. Not so much for aerodynamic considerations at that speed.

If being aerodyamic was the primary goal of such clothing, we'd also all wearing an aero helmet and be on a time trial bike like Dave Zabriskie here.



So why "spandex" then? A few things:

1. You, the casual observer, aren't able to see huge sweatspots. You should actually be applauding the fact that we aren't subjecting you to huge splotches of wetness emanating from our underams, chest, and crotch. We'd probably get way more crap if we wore cotton.
2. It doesn't chafe. Ever go to the gym wearing streetclothes and work out *hard* for an hour? If you haven't, I'll fill you in. Anywhere your body has been moving, the wet clothes will have abraded away your skin and chafed. It even happens with the best of clothes.
3. It doesn't stay wet. Generally, cyclists are rarely on a ride for less than an hour. On just a warm day, you can sweat off a few liters of fluids in an hour. Wet clothes are unconfortable and unsightly (see #1 & #2)

Same goes for helmets. the sculpted helmets you see cyclists wearing are also not really aerodynamic. They're designed keep your head from overheating on a 95F day when you're not cracking your skull to the pavement after being buzzed by an oblivious soccer mom on her cell phone.

Also, people don't wear cycling clothes to look like Lance Armstrong. If anything, pro cyclists are sponsored by performance clothing companies in the same way Tiger Woods & Kobe Bryant sell sporting apparel. When I see a neighborhood game of b-ball, and see some guys wearing jerseys, I don't think, "what a moron! that guy thinks he's Shaq!"

Perspective: Drivers of horse carriages were constantly annoyed by bicyclists at the turn of the century 20th in New York City; little has changed in over 100 years. And should the day come that we're rationing our dwindling petroleum reserves for strict consumption for international air transport and agricultural equipment, I'm sure whatever you're using to get around, a cyclist will find some way to piss you off.

I bought a new bike at the wrong time.

Ok. I'm lying. I really love my P2C. It has the best paint job of all bikes, it fits me well, and it feels damn fast. And it is....when I'm riding it.

Cervelo just released the very long awaited P4

Tell me this isn't the sexiest bike you've ever seen.



A water bottle holder & bottle is built into the frame, as is the rear brake.

HOT.

Sheesh

Since I really didn't have anything going on yesterday, I met up with my friend Mark(who crashed last year) for a semi-easy bike ride. Burnt out from racing, I figured it'd be nice to have a nice ride with friends and enjoy a good day. Hey, I had nothing better going on.

Another friend, MC is training for an Ironman, and we were going to ride with him for a while, get some coffee and let him go off for a while as we relax, and ride back with him. 60 miles, maybe....

Well, we met up in EP at a local pro triathlete's house, only to find that M left his helmet & shoes at home. So he borrowed both and we headed on our bikes to his place. On the way M got a flat, but he rode it 6 miles to his house. We took a nice loop out to the lake, stopped in Wayzata ffor that coffee. Then all of us headed west of along the lake towards St. Boni, and back. By the time we made it back into town, we had gone about 80 miles.

Hey....MC only has another hour.....lets make it 100! Uh....OK....can we get some gatorade?

A few miles past the gas station, my legs were talking to me. We swung by the uptown lakes, and back out to EP. My legs blew up a few miles away from my car, but I held out.

We finished just short of 100, 6hours 11minutes including the coffee & gatorade breaks.

Fuel Required:
1 medium iced coffee
1 strawberry odwalla
2 lemon lime gatorades
32 oz water
1 powerbar gel
1 large peanut butter cup blizzard (afterwards)

Show me a car that can get that kinda mileage.

Brewhouse 08

Determined not to make another Bode-esque appearance at yet another race, I took a nice early spot on the couch at an old friend's house in Duluth, and got an early start this morning. I mooched breakfast from their kitchen and slipped out the door.

This was to be another "B" race. I just finished peak week, and I'm nursing a calf injury I got on Tuesday while running. (how I can shred my gastrocnemius 0.8 miles into a run is beyond my understanding--also beyond my understanding is why I ran another 3 miles on it) I'd only signed up for Brewhouse to meet the maximum amount of scoring races in the Midwest Multisport series, and Brewhouse was my 5th. I could've done either of the Pigmans, but I'm abstaining from Iowa.

Anyways, I was able to get a good spot in transition. This was pretty important, because it is very tight in that transition. The rows are congested, and they are close together. The run lane was also tight.

Swim: On the run into the water, I felt myself almost kicking my timing chip off, so i stopped to slip it under my wetsuit. Once I got going, it felt pretty fast! Coming back into the sun was difficult, and the first turn had me disoriented about which way to go. I eventually figured it out, and had lots of open water. I thought I was the first guy out of the water, but it turns out I let a few guys escape out in front of me....but they were pretty fast.

T1: 1:59 struggled with my helmet straps, almost choking myself. fast otherwise.

Bike: 22.4mph avg. Par. I pushed pretty hard, and even jousted with some of the women's leaders and reeled in a few off the elite wave. There was one very hairy turn where some of the short course runners slipped into the bike lane, right in front of me! WTF? I was narrowly able to pass on one side without being railroaded into pylons.

Perhaps the turd in the punchbowl of this race is the road. It's horrible. Cracked, uneven, patched....whatever could possibly make it rough, it was there, jostling my undercarriage and slowing me down. A co-worker jokingly asked me if I put a suspension fork on my Cervelo, and in hindsight, it might not have been such a bad idea. The road made it extremely difficult to hold speed and it really provided for a mental block. On a smooth road I could have easily broken 23. Seriously--even DKT didn't break 27mph.

Speaking of that guy, I was nearing the finish of the bike when I passed a guy on the bike with a unitard that said Thompson, riding on a Litespeed with Zipps. I thought this was DKT having an off day, but upon passing him later on, I realized it was a different Thompson.

T2: 2:13 Decent dismount. The setup of transition made you run all the way to the end of the racks and back, which was annoying and made it easy for some people to cheat, which my friend J witnessed. I'm going to just go with blisters on my next race and leave my socks in the transition bag.

Run: 7:14/mile. I felt very slow out of T2, and my legs felt totally worthless, and in pain. I began to wonder if I pushed it too hard on the bike. Then I sucked it up when I saw DKT limping along going the other way to win the race. Now he looked like he was in pain.

The run course goes up, up, up, up, up, up, down, down, up, and then steeply down. Then you have to turn around and do that backwards. Aside from this being the most painful run I've done all season, I liked the course. You could see a patrol car flashing from the finish line with about downhill mile to go, which was pretty inspiring.

I think some of the "volunteers" on the run course were misfit youth doing community service. I will say that they were dedicated to what they were doing, and very encouraging.

I'll take 7:14's given the pain I was in. 165HR felt way tougher than the 174 I was sustaining at HOLT. I'll run faster next week.

Placing
5/20 ag
44/??

Overall, the race was well done. The direction was good(the guy who puts the race on is a Duluth rockstar of sorts), the lake was pleasant & clean, the run course was challenging. They also gave away a TON of shit. More than most races I go to. But I won't go back until they fix the road.

Seriously.....my butt still hurts.

Rules of the Road for Cyclists

Nonessential Preface: So the (awesome) new girl I'm dating lives in this house near the river. I like riding my Trek & Cervelo along the river when I'm taking shorter "round the city" rides...but this morning, on our way to breakfast there was a trillion cyclists out on the river road and I wanted to puke at some of the antics.

Bike riders, Here are your new rules.
You can thank stupid cyclists for this post.

All Bicyclists
1. Wear a helmet. I don't care if you're Lance Armstrong, or you're barely rolling along on your hybrid.
2. Pay attention! All the time! Know where cars are, where other cyclists are, and what on the road will crash you. THIS SHOULD BE INTUITIVE.
3. Don't draft a stranger.(exception-during a road race) This is acutely rude. We are not on a bike team, we are not racing, I don't know you or trust you, and we aren't buddies. Get off my f*cking wheel.
4. Shave your goddamn legs or at least trim once in a while. Chewbacca legs say 2 things: a) You are a slow newb or you don't know what you're doing, b) Guh- roasss!
5. Don't ride with your knees pointed outward. It makes me want to slap you. (and it's going to blow out your cartilage)
6. Don't blow stop signs/stoplights where there's actually traffic. If I was a cop, I would ticket you.
7. Don't you dare try racing on a bike path.

Recreational Cyclists
If your 'road bike' has flat(straight) handlebars or has a suspension fork, and you nearly sit upright on your bike, this applies to you.
8.Bike paths were made specifically for you. Avoid riding on streets whenever you can. If you had somewhere to be, you wouldn't be on a hybrid now, would you? Seriously....I run faster than some of you.
9. Do not ride abreast on the street. Especially if its busy. Don't be surprised if a car hits you.
10. Pay attention to other cyclists and their speed relative to yours. Just because your bike doesn't break 15mph, doesn't mean that I won't be passing your at 35mph.
11. Don't you dare entertain the idea that you can keep up with traffic. Sorry for your bike envy, but that hybrid purchase is your fault, not mine.
12. I'm amazed by some of your egos. Your hybrid bike with the disc brakes, slick 26x1.75" tires, suspension fork, kickstand, platform pedals, and all the other shit you have hanging off of it is the object of my laughter behind your back.
13. I'm a nice guy, but don't try to talk bikes with a racer unless you know what 185bpm feels like.

Fixie/Singlespeed Hipsters & Messengers
14. Wear a Helmet! I say this again because I see you fuckers without them all the time. I don't care if your long snarly haircut gets messy. It looks like you have a large rodent on your head anyways.
15. Do not buzz pedestrians. I'm going to stick my elbow out next time you do this, and your non-helmeted head is going to splat on the pavement. You will look like roadkill.
16. Your fixed gear elitism/geared bike scoffing is stupid and the irony entailed is making me laugh under my breath. Are you serious? Don't kid yourself--I know riding a fixed gear is tough, but racers can pump out the same watts on fixies too. (hint: lots of us winter train on fixed gear spin bikes)

Triathletes
17. Do NOT draft while in your aeros--anyone, anywhere, anytime.(exception--TTT) Try it out if you want to know what it feels like to cartwheel your bike while your feet are clipped in.
18. Aero helmets are for racing ONLY. Wearing one at any other time makes you look like *literally and figuratively* a total douchenozzle to anyone on the planet except for those OCD triathletes who post on the slowtwitch forums.(exception--practicing your transitions early in the morning)
19. Tri tops & tri shorts are for racing or brick sets --that's it. Wear sleeved jerseys when you aren't going to be breaking into a run immediately afterwards. Sleeveless bike jerseys look creepy, (exception--you're a hot chick) and you're gonna look like a burn victim wrapped in bacon if you wipe out.

Roadies.
20. Stay off the bike paths unless you're taking it really easy. 20mph+ and/or pacelines and recreational cyclists is a recipe for a wreck.
21. Racing cars is total masturbation. Motorists don't give a shit about you or your bike. You won't make them appreciate you--they're probably too dumb to understand.
22. Get a normal jersey, will ya? Those Pink floyd/Zeppelin/Art jerseys say "too poor to buy a corvette during my mid-life crisis" like nothing else.

Mountain bikers:
23. If you look like delinquent teenage criminal, expect the cops to treat you like one. Lose the ear lobe plugs and nasal septum piercings.
24. Smoking Cigarettes says one thing: "I suck at riding bikes." Expect to be scoffed at as we all pwn you on the singletrack.

Commuters
Really, you guys aren't too bad. I have no beefs unless you fit into another category.

Holy Crap this pissed me off.

Watch this.

I felt compelled to write, even though there were many well written pieces from cyclists covering many of my initial arguments. As a supplement, here's what I wrote.

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A couple things that have not been touched on:

Miffed that cyclists don't pay taxes? You can thank your heavy vehicles(and sometimes frost) that we cyclists have to dodge potholes on 23mm wide tires. The rule of thumb that Civil Engineers used when designing roads is that damage is proportional to the vehicle's gross weight per axle, raised to 4th power. That means that even the heaviest cyclist accounts for a negligible amount of road wear in comparison to the lightest Honda Civic. Those of you who have heavy SUV's & such pay roughly the same in taxes that the civic driver does. What gives? Pay for your damage!

Also keep in mind that it is your right to ride a bicycle, while driving your beloved car/truck is a privilege. Even if you've bought a car, kept it in good maintenance, registered your vehicle in the state, purchased insurance, and have a driver's license, your ability to drive on the state's roadways can be taken from you by a court. None of those things listed above are required by MN statute 169.222 (except good maintenance), and I have never heard of someone ever getting their right to ride a bicycle taken from them (unless they've been killed)--with exception to those suggestions I've read here. I'm American and I love freedom. I have a right to ride a bicycle and I exercise it. Hey--try some freedom on and see how it fits. Free yourself from the gridlock!

I'm also human, and I make mistakes. My driver's ed instructor told me that a good driver makes a mistake about once a minute. Motorists, I've driven in rush hour traffic probably just as much as you have. I know how frustrating it is. You're tired, you're cranky, you just want to get home after a hard day of work, you just paid your $400 car payment, you just paid an arm & a leg for North Dakotan oil that somehow is $3.52/ gallon because of uprisings in Nigeria, and some jerk in another car cut you off. I'm sorry I was dodging a pothole and you had to slow down to 20mph.

I don't condone riding through stop signs/lights. I'd also argue that many people observed in this video are hardly serious cyclists. I noticed most of them wearing cotton and some wearing music players while riding--telltale signs of those who ride infrequently and thus have little experience and knowledge about how to be courteous on the road and responsible cyclists. Ticket them.

By the way, motorists, you should thank me. Every time I ride my bicycle, I'm one less car at the crosstown, I'm 2 less gallons of gas burnt (thus decreasing the demand and theoretically the price), I'm healthier and will statistically be less likely to consume heath care costs that the state or my employer would otherwise assume. I'm also happier--both because exercise promotes mental health, and I have a good excuse to enjoy a beer afterwards with friends.