Okay. I don’t know the first thing about
apparel, and frankly, I never thought
much about it. However. I ride my bike
more than necessary, and although I
live away from both people and city,
deep inside the woods of Sweden, I still want to look
good, and I’m guessing that so do you. We want to
look good on our bikes. I came to terms with that as
a child, and maybe you did too.
Cycling is special in that many of us secretly pay
as much attention to our looks as Ronaldo does, but
we hate him for doing so, because if we crash we hurt
ourselves, and when he falls over he doesn’t, but he
is screaming more than we ever do when hitting the
ground, and so therefore he is an overpaid child,
and we are not, and this gives us the right to think
about our looks more than him. There should be an
argument there, but if we can’t find it, we’ll run with
Ronaldo being an overpaid child.
Style is not easy, yet it is everything. Style is not a
thing like poetry is not a thing. Both are everything
and not confined to fabric or sizes, words or meaning.
To do a dull and ordinary thing with style is more
challenging than to do a difficult thing with style.
In fact, to do a dull thing with style is preferable to
doing a dangerous thing without it. I would argue
that cycling is art because you attempt to make the
dangerous look effortless.
Style matters. In fact, many of us want to look
good almost more than we want to go fast, and I can’t
think of an activity or sport where worrying about
your looks while exercising matters just as much—or
more—as doing the actual activity.
Here is an example: If your friend drops you on a
climb, you’ll settle into thinking that you are alone on
a mountain looking as good as Fausto Coppi, and that
will make up for the humiliation of being dropped by
that same friend, who is posting Instagram photos of
himself on the bike all the time, yet when you see him,
he says he’s hardly been riding his bike for six months.
Oh, what lies. What lies we throw at each other as
cyclists. But we tolerate it, because we all win in the
end. You see, your friend up ahead on the road now
thinks he’s Marco Pantani dropping Lance Armstrong
—you are Lance Armstrong—but you are really Fausto
Coppi going for a solo win at the Giro, and your friend
is not Marco Pantani. He is just an asshole up the road,
who dropped you because of three or four excuses you
are cooking up at the moment, and because the first
asshole cyclist that comes to mind is Lance Armstrong,
your friend is now Lance Armstrong. So at this moment,
on this mountain, 500 meters apart, you are now both
Lance Armstrong and not Lance Armstrong.
Yes, so. Ride your bike. Get out there. Don’t be
ashamed to look at your reflection when you pass
shopping windows. Don’t be ashamed to wear a team
kit, either. Do whatever you want, but do it knowing
that when you pass other riders on the road, or if you
are in a social group hanging around at the cafe—even
if we pretend we don’t—everyone is deciding who we
are, which is why style matters.ISSUE 5 • BICYCLING.COM 51