MAMILS

It is with mixed feelings that I have recently read several articles on the increasing number of mamils (middle-aged-men in lycra). As a member of the relevant age group I feel I should be supportive of their effort to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I can appreciate the health benefits but cannot somehow see these faddish cycling converts forsaking their 4x4s as a green issue. Call me a cynic but in terms of carbon footprint I can’t help feeling that the drive to the countryside, where most mamils appear to congregate, greatly outweighs that of the journey undertaken on 2 wheels.

From a health perspective I can understand that strenuous exercise can assist blood flow, aid digestion, reduce fat, improve concentration, boost confidence, strengthen muscles and increase stamina, however I can think of no other activity or occupation, with the possible exception of the porn industry, where it is necessary to raise your bottom higher than you head for a sustained period. Maintaining the racing position during the Tour de France may be photogenic but must ultimately lead to a rushing of blood to the head (which may account for the number of accidents during the race). Being someone whose physique could do with a little toning I shall not dwell on the negative aspects of exercise, or lack thereof.

I genuinely think it is a good thing that more people are taking the opportunity to experience the countryside. So long as they ride in single file they are as welcome to go about their business as any rambler, backpacker, biker or tree-hugger (sorry, my bon homie  does not extend to caravanners or groups of cyclists who insist on riding 3 abreast down the middle of  a busy dual carriageway).   

I have lost count the number of times this Summer (I use the term loosely) when I have been forced to slow to a crawl behind an aging cyclist, sweat pouring from every orifice, wobbling precariously up a steep hill more suited for mountain goats, torn between the mischievous thoughts of ‘is he going to fall off’ or ‘should I lean out the window and giving him a helping hand with my trusty fly swat’.

What amazes me is the lengths that some of these mamils go to in the name of their ‘sport’.  Mirror sunglasses, helmets that look like bedpans, bikes that cost more than a small car and  have more technology than a NASA spacecraft; and what is it with shaving the legs? I can’t  buy into the argument that it is a pre-emptive measure in case you fall and require medical attention. Footballers don’t shave their legs in case they need stitches to their gashed calves, they do it for aesthetic reasons. Please don’t tell me that it makes you look good. It is very difficult to take any comment seriously from  someone dressed in Lycra. Not even Eddie Merckx could make Lycra look sexy. Not prepared to settle for squeezing your expanding waistline into a very unforgiving sausage skin you then insist on wearing the most garish colours in order to draw attention to the fact that the costume barely fits where it touches and draws attention to regions of the body that most sensible people would prefer to keep covered.

Lycra is very much of the middle-aged-man generation, having been invented by Dupont in 1959. For reasons that still elude me many of the glam-rock, and heavy metal bands of the 70’s and 80’s chose this stretchable fabric to make a fashion statement. In time they, or the public, concluded that watching grown men, and women, flounce around the stage in sweaty catsuits just wasn’t sexy any more. Why couldn’t the cycling community take the hint.   

Thinking back to my childhood, I remember cyclists with sensible attire – cycle clips, trousers with crease you could cut butter with, sensible shoes (freshly polished) and a flat cap or hat that would be doffed to passing ladies in a gentlemanly manner.  There were no cycle lanes in those days and the only safety equipment you had was a bell (freshly polished – hooters were for plebs!). The only gears most bikes had were your legs and pavements were for pedestrians, not the cyclist’s equivalent of the fast lane.   
 
Sacré bleu! I hear you cry (belatedly). What does this buffoon know about the  Tour de France and Eddie Merckx.  My reply is simply that Eddie Merckx was as much a part of my childhood as George Best, Bobby Charlton, Barrie John, Cassius Clay, Dennis Lillee, Garry Sobers and countless other sporting greats. I would have dearly loved to have emulated the feats of the great Baron Merckx though by quirk of birth I had neither the skill nor the bike with which to achieve this. Like most of us whose key ‘bike years’  were from the age of toddler up until the time we first realise that it goes a lot faster if you attach an engine to it. In this respect the bike of choice for any self-respecting schoolboy of my generation was a ‘Raleigh Chopper’. Not, in retrospect, one of the world’s greatest inventions but an icon of its age nonetheless.  Sadly, my parents were far too sensible to purchase anything so ‘racey’ for their progeny and so forsaking my plaintive wails, having outgrown my existing bike, they opted one Christmas to purchase a bike so hideous that I was too embarrassed to ride it in the streets lest my friends saw me. Whilst other kids were tearing around the streets doing ‘wheelies’ and screeching around bends at unlikely angles I struggled to get this dinosaur of a bike out of first gear.

The wheel’s radius was about half that of a normal bike and the tyres twice as thick. The frame was made of disused scaffolding and it had a small purse / tool kit holder on the handlebars and a pannier the size of a small fridge on the back. It had 3 gears, akin to a throttle, which were useless to a weakling like me who needed all their strength to get the bike to move. I was forever changing up and down the gears involuntarily as I leant my body forward to try and get more purchase on the pedals. It took all my strength to lift it in and out of the shed where it spent the greater part of its working life.  My guess would be that my father saw this as a dual purpose purchase, in so far that I would not be needing it during the week to commute to school, which meant that my mother could use it nip round the shops. No kidding, on occasions I would occasionally accompany her on these shopping expeditions during the school holidays and found that I could walk the 3 miles quicker than she could cycle.

I did eventually manage to procure a more appropriate cycle in my mid-teens, which saw good service conveying me to and from school. I never felt the need to have a pannier and my bell, though rusting, was used sparingly. If I thought I looked ridiculous on my ‘Raleigh Dinosaur’ imagine the embarrassment I would feel now should I ever decide to become a mamil and don bedpan and Lycra.