WHY CYCLISTS SHAVE THEIR LEGS! Busting myths and revealing secrets!

One of the most misunderstood and confusing aspects of cycling culture is the fact that most cyclists shave their legs. Never mind wearing colorful lycra uniforms or the desire to ride 30 miles out of your way just to go up a steep hill, shaving the legs is always the topic that really gets your family members confused.
Don't worry, I will not be including any tips on how to shave your legs for the first time - suffice to say that you will gain a whole new appreciation for what women do all the time. But since VeloDiet aims to introduce cycling to the masses, or at least get your relatives a little less puzzled about our bizarre culture, the question must be asked: Why do cyclist shave their legs? Well, there are 5 common answers to that question and I've listed them below (going from least to most truthful!)

Be a part of cycling culture and gain a whole new respect for women!

Massage -  After riding 200kms for the 6th day in a row, and knowing that you have another 2 weeks of similar riding ahead, professional cyclists need all the help they can get to aid in muscle recovery. A big tool for this recovery are deep tissue massages following a hard day on the bike. Shaved legs are beneficial during massages as leg hair can be pulled when the masseur really starts working on the muscles and the smooth clean skin reacts better to the massage oil. Some also say that shaved legs feel better while getting massaged, but I wouldn't know because I am not a professional cyclist and I have never had a team masseur give me a recovery massage after an epic ride. And to be honest, the great majority of the cyclists who shave their legs haven't either, so I don't really think that massages have much to do with that razor blade.

Aerodynamics - Coming very close to the least truthful answer is the concept that smooth legs make you aerodynamically faster. The concept sounds pretty good and actually is real. A smooth surface has less drag and accordingly, a hairy surface would have more drag. More drag equals slower and cycling is all about speed - so off with the hair! The problem is that any aerodynamic gain would be miniscule, especially for amateur cyclists riding to the coffee shop on the weekends. Cycling pros do work on getting every miniscule advantage and wear even specially designed shoe covers to aid in optimum air flow during time trials - but again for the average cyclist, it's just not a remarkable difference. So, although being "aero" is probably the most common answer to the question, the reality is that air flow charts on hair follicles also have very little to do with the razor blade.

Appearance - now we are getting close to the real reasons! Cyclists can be very aware of their appearance (see the comment above regarding matching lycra uniforms). There is always a concern within any cycling group to look as "pro" as possible, and there are discussions about what is the correct socks color or how high they should be worn. Shaving does help make your leg muscles more visible (basing this on all the bodybuilders out there) and riding with shaved legs does look and feel cleaner. And appearance is important - after all, if you look good, you feel good, and if you feel good, you ride better! But here comes another one of the commonly used sentences in this blog: everybody is different, and as we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many cyclists out there don't care for shaved legs, and don't need to do it in order to feel good about their appearance. So, whether or not appearance is the reason for the razor blade, depends on your own personal taste.

Before and After Shaving - notice any difference?

Healing - unfortunately, here is an answer that I can personally vouch for being true. Crashing your bike is never fun, but it's even worse when you are riding fast and wearing no protection. And the result of almost every bicycle crash will include some lost skin and road rash. This will sound a bit like a stretch, but the hair on your skin has a funny habit of picking up bits of dirt and tarmac as your skin is reaped from your body as you scrape yourself on some rural road. Hair also makes it tough to treat the wound and to keep it clean as it heals. I have had the unfortunate opportunity to confirm that this is real. I am not going to get graphic, but the road rash on my legs hurt a lot less and healed a lot quicker than the road rash on my arms. So much so, that I seriously considered shaving my arms if I were to continue racing - the difference was alarming. So, if you don't think you will enjoy scrubbing off bits of pavement from your own live flesh (literally), this might be enough reason to go get that razor blade!

Commitment - all excuses and lame answers aside, here is the reason I started to shave my legs, and I suppose why most cyclists do the same. Shaved legs are a big part of the tradition of cycling and it is symbolic to your commitment to its culture. It means that you care about the tradition of the sport more than the taboo of the mainstream culture. I am not saying that those who do not shave their legs are not real cyclists, but shaving your legs is a symbol that you truly embrace being a cyclist, with all its quirkiness, and are not afraid to show that commitment to all your confused relatives!

SAND, SNOW, CARS, TRAINS AND FANS! The Hidden Dangers of Pro Cycling!

Racing bikes is a dangerous sport and racing bikes professionally is incredibly dangerous. Those athletes will be riding at speeds near 100km/h on tires that are 2.5cm wide with nothing but a lightweight helmet and some lycra for protection. In bicycle races, any consideration for your own safety is generally brushed aside for the need for speed. But so far this year, a few events have shown that the dangers of cycling goes beyond riding a bicycle at a high rate of speed, and underscored the need for additional care towards rider safety.
Some of this dangers have been historically considered part of what makes the sport special. Weather has always played a role in setting the stage for epic cycling. But this year, a few weather events have made news and caused cyclists to question the conditions in which they are allowed to (or made to) race in. The first event took place in the...well, in the deserts of Oman. Nevermind the basic concept of setting up bike races in the desert to begin with (money talks - after all, the World Cup will take place in Qatar), but on stage 5 of the Tour of Oman, a sandstorm along with heat reported to be approaching 48C (120F), caused the stage to be shortened and eventually cancelled. The heat was such that some bicycle tires were exploding.



Tirreno Adriatico Stage 5 - snow and subfreezing temperatures
Image by CorVos / CyclingTips

Around 3 weeks later, some of those same cyclists were climbing up the high mountains in Italy during the Tirreno Adriatico, where on stage 5, as cyclists approached the finish line at a mountain top, a blizzard started to come down. Along with sub-freezing temperatures and the sloping roads quickly accumulating with snow, the situation was becoming very dangerous. But since the race was so close to the end, it was allowed to continue. Although conditions were not horrible for the first group of finishers, those who arrived down the order some 20 minutes later, had to endure some incredibly treacherous conditions after the TV coverage ended. But sometimes it's not only the heat or cold - you can also see footage of Geraint Thomas being literally thrown of his bike by some insane winds on Gent Wevelgem (here) not long ago this year.
But again, weather is always an integral part of a bicycle race and many purists brush aside complaints from today's racers and instead point to historic examples of epic weather racing. It's a hard man's sport! Actually, it's a hard woman's sport as well. Earlier this year, Australian cyclist  Loren Rowney crashed in the final sprint of an European race and broke her collarbone. Nothing new, but if you watch footage of the crash here , you will notice that the cause of the crash was a spectator who reached into the course and pulled her handlebars causing her to stumble across the finish line. Fans are an integral part of the sport. When the arena stretches over 200kms in distance, it is impossible to separate the athletes from the fans. This is usually one of the most beautiful aspects of professional cycling, but sometimes, as this other video linked below shows, it is also one of the most frightening.

Fans - an integral part of the sport and an integral part of the danger

But this year has been special and some hidden dangers have made their presence known in the two biggest single day races of the calendar. In the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, one of the support vehicles which normally provides mechanical assistance to riders, attempted to pass the leading group of competitors at the wrong time, and the result, as seen in the video link below, was terrifying. But thankfully it could've been worse, and despite some broken bones and road rash, the rider will be able to compete again. Amazingly, a few minutes later, another support vehicle rear-ended a team car which was about to help a cyclist causing him to be thrown into the air. Again, luckily, he will be able to race again. Although both drivers were professionals with experience in many bike races, one has to wonder if more can be done to make sure drivers participating in bike races can be trained further to insure that such incidences never take place.

Sometimes even those who are there to help can be part of the danger

A week later, on Paris-Roubaix, possibly the most famous of the single-day races, the peloton was crossing the a railroad when the gates started to come down. Chaos ensued and as the peloton was now being cut in half, riders ignored the gates, ringing bells and lone policeman trying to control the situation and continued to cross the railroad line in front of a high-speed train. I count 7 seconds from the last rider clearing the railroad and the train arriving at the crossing. Moments like this sure make cyclists' calls for safer conditions lose some value. The race judges did not disqualify any of the riders involved in this incident. Although  the gates came down at the worst possible time and the first few cyclists had no choice but to go through, many of the cyclists following and riding across the gates after they have been lowered should've been disqualified.

Cyclists can often be very good examples of unsafe behavior.

The dangers can be constant on a bike race. Recently, there has been another horrible crash because someone decided that steel posts in the middle of the final stretch on Tour of Basque Country Stage 1 would be safe (as seen here).  And this last video highlights the key to rider safety. Professional cyclists entrust their lives to the people who organize the events and the sport. The UCI's paramount duty should be to protect the people who take part of each event, including cyclists and spectators. They generally do a great job at that and have rules put in place to prevent all the situations listed here from happening (aside from the weather of course). What needs to take place is a more strict and precise adherence to the rules, from staff training to rider disqualifications, and a clear set of rules dictating when the weather should force a race to be stopped or cancelled altogether.
The sport is never going to be a safe sport, but if anything else can be done to insure the safety of participants, it should be done. After all, those cyclists are going 100km/h, on 2.5cm tires, wearing nothing but lycra.

CARS VS BIKES - How to deal with angry drivers!

I like cars. I like talking about the new car models coming out, I like the sound of a powerful engine and I get excited when I see a Ferrari parked on the street. After all, I am a motorist.  I like bicycles. I like talking about the new bike models coming out, I like the sound of a chain being shifted through the derailleur and I get excited when I see a Colnago being ridden on the street. After all, I am a cyclist. And I am convinced that both motorists and cyclists can happily co-exist in this world!

I am writing this blog as a cyclist and as such, I've found that the key to a happy co-existence with cars is to just leave them alone. Try to interact with them as little as possible and let them go on their happy way! Before we go any further though, I want to thank Hop Cycling for the use of the images in today's blog. If you are curious about what it's like to ride a bicycle in Poland and nearby areas, check out Hop Cycling blog!

Believe it or not, all the images featured today come from one single group ride!

As I wrote previously on Where To Ride Your Bike!, a big part of the "battle" with cars is finding the right quiet roads with little traffic to ride on. But no matter how hard you may try, chances are that you will have to interact with cars. And to be honest, by far, the great majority of the interaction cyclists have with cars is positive (in other words, people drive and people ride!) But inevitably, there are negative interactions, typically in the form of an angry driver using their vehicle as a lethal weapon or in the form of an inattentive driver with potential lethal consequences. It may sound overly dramatic to use the word lethal, but when you are riding a 8kg bicycle, any encounter you have with a multi-ton vehicle could end very badly - trust me, if anything, I am not being dramatic enough!

The best way to deal with distracted drivers is to ride defensively. Driving today invites many forms of distractions. From the radio station, telephone, coffee, big-mac, computer, doing make-up or shaving your beard while driving, chances are that some drivers are not focusing solely on the road ahead. I always ride my bike assuming that cars are not going to be able to see me, but doing as much as I can to be visible. This usually translates to me riding as far to the right of the road as it is safe, and having a rear flashing tail light, even during day time hours. When approaching any intersection in which I have the right of way, if there are any vehicles waiting, I will still try to establish eye-contact with the driver to make sure they see me. With time, you develop a sixth-sense for potential situations when someone is not paying attention.

Unlike the previous image, here the adjacent lane is wide open for the car!

Then there are angry drivers. These are otherwise rational human beings who are suddenly overcome with unsurmountable rage from having to change lanes or losing 8.2 seconds of their day to deal with those evil bicycles. Angry drivers usually tend to try teach cyclists a lesson, showing how dangerous riding a bicycle on a road can be, by shifting the car as closely as possible to the cyclist and passing them at a high rate of speed (and in turn, making riding a bicycle in the road dangerous to begin with - it's like taking someone's wallet to show them they are in a dangerous neighborhood). Some other angry drivers take a more direct approach and just blast their horn, lower their window and scream for you to get out their damn road! I do think that most angry drivers would be far more accepting to cyclists being on the road if they knew that it is legal for cyclists to be on the road.

So what is a cyclist to do? When I first started riding, I used to chase down angry drivers whenever possible so I could tell them of the law and that not only I had the right to be on the road, but in many instances, it would be illegal for me to ride on the sidewalk. But very quickly I found out that if a driver is willing to use their multi-ton vehicle to express their rage, they are not in the right frame of mind to discuss the law, or learn about cyclists rights. It's just not the right platform for those conversations. I then changed my approach to just express my displeasure by nodding my head from side to side to display my disapproval from being nearly killed. But very quickly I found out that angry drivers like to have negative interactions escalated even further and I would often see the driver slams on the brakes, try to force me off the road, obscene gestures...more rage. Which takes me back to the key to a happy co-existence with cars: just leave them alone! This can be very hard to do when you feel all the adrenaline from having a car travel within inches of your life and you feel that desire to fight back somehow, but the quicker they are out of your life, the happier you'll be. So I try to completely ignore angry drivers. Not a hand gesture, not a disapproving nod, not even a sigh. Cars are bigger, heavier and faster than cyclists, and picking a fight with them is just not worth it. So I just ignore them, not giving them the satisfaction of escalating the situation and instead just take a deep breath and get back to enjoying my ride - which should always be your goal on the bike anyways!

Angry Drivers - The quicker they are out of your life, the happier you'll be!

Lastly, it is important not to instigate a negative situation to begin with. "Share the Road" goes both ways and cyclists should be diligent in sharing the road with vehicles as much as possible. Avoiding busy roads goes a long way, but riding predictively, not taking the lane when you don't have to, signaling your intentions to vehicles around you, and riding single file on busier roads when you are riding with one or two other mates are also good ways to nurture more positive interaction with car drivers.

Always be an ambassador to our sport. It's right there on Rule #13! Being a friendly, courteous and thoughtful cyclists should be as standard as taking an extra tire tube with you on your ride. "Cars and Bikes" sure sounds a lot better than "Cars vs Bikes"!

WATER, SLEEP AND OTHER TIPS! Easy tricks that helped me lose weight!

It has been a while since I last wrote something about the "Diet" side of "VeloDiet" but the time has come to share some additional tips that helped me lose weight. Just backtracking a little, the key to lose weight is to primarily live an active lifestyle daily ("Velo" / Bike) with healthy eating habits ("Diet"). The Diet aspect comes both from the types food you eat (as covered previously on EAT YOUR CAKE AND KEEP IT TOO! How I lost weight and still ate what I like! ) AND how you eat it, which is just as important!

If you've read this blog before, you surely must've come across the words "never feel full, never feel hungry". At the risk of being repetitive, I must stress how important that sentence was for me in adjusting my eating habits. As an overeater, I enjoyed feeling full and always equated "dieting" with "feeling hungry". That is an important topic on its own, and you can read more about it by clicking this link! But this post goes into other tips, most of them quite easy, that helped along my journey!

Yes, the time of the day matters!

Let's start with meals and the time of the day! First, there is breakfast, which Americans call the "most important meal of the day" and is also the easiest meal to skip altogether. You should always eat a good breakfast! Personally, I subscribe to the continental breakfast of some cereal, breads, maybe some fruit and definitely coffee, but many make breakfast a much bigger meal, which is also ok. The point is to start the day telling your body that you will be providing nutrition and that it can go ahead and start burning calories. So eat your breakfast and get that metabolic engine going right away!

Lunch is my biggest meal of the day. It's a very latin thing to do and I suppose that's why I always crave that siesta in the early afternoon. Generally, I would eat out at a local restaurant during my lunch breaks and always had trouble handling the "generous" portions I would often encounter, so it was natural for me to make it the biggest caloric intake of the day. I still do my best to follow the "never fell full" guideline, but it's nice to know that I still have the rest of the day to burn off those calories.

Which leads me to dinner, my smallest meal of the day. It's almost a snack, really. The reason is simple, you are not going to be able to burn those calories before your body slows down and you go to sleep. Now, I even struggle to fall asleep if I have a bigger meal too late in the day. It is also important to eat your dinner early to give your body enough time for digestion before sleep. At the very very least, you should try not to eat anything 2 hours before going to sleep.

And then, there are the snacks! Finding healthy snacks that I actually wanted to eat was actually hugely important for my weight loss. In order to keep your metabolism working for you, it must get the fuel it needs when it needs. So, if I start to feel hungry but it's not time for a meal, I reach for that snack (think fruit, not chocolate bar!) Also, before you reach for that healthy "nutrition bar", take a quick look at the nutrition facts, as some of those healthy snacks are packed full of calories and protein, since many are designed for athletes actively exercising or recovering - and not for the usual office employee!

Let me include a special note about the "6 smaller meals a day" method. Back when I was a "larger individual", I liked really big meals! Feeling full made me happy, and when I tried the 6 smaller meals a day method, I ended up eating 6 "still pretty big meals" and gained weight. Everyone is different, and if you are capable of controlling yourself, the approach is really solid. Eating many small meals (or snacks) throughout the day will not only keep your from overeating, but will also keep your metabolic engine running at high speed with the "constant" digestions. But still today, that approach is too dangerous for me.

The 6-liter bottle of water above should last you 2 days!

Water! Drink water! Lots of water! We've all heard that our bodies are 60% water and the reality is that every system in our body needs water to function. It's amazing how little water most people drink today, considering that the general recommendation is about 3 liters of water daily. That can include other liquids, but beware of the calories and sugar hidden in a lot of drinks. Being hydrated not only helps your body run efficiently, but feeling dehydrated can make you feel tired, which could lead you to eat more!

Sleep! When you consider that sleeping regulates hormones that impact hunger and that lack of sleep will negatively affect your metabolism, you can see that sleeping is essential for you to keep your healthy eating habits. Also, if you don't sleep, you will be tired and less willing to go for that bike ride. And on that note, it's after almost midnight as I write this, so...good night!