The Little Humiliations of Road Biking

Road biking, racing and other hard core road pursuits in particular, is nothing if not humiliating.

There are both petty humiliations, and major humiliations. There is another category of humiliations as well: daily. If it's not getting dropped when the selection is made in a race, it's somebody's nasty comment about your clothes, chicken legs, bullock legs, general appearance, you name it. One thing after another. I'm going to list some recent humiliations, starting with tonight's.

- It was cold out tonight, and I had to work late unexpectedly. I couldn't fit my dress shirt under my tight long sleeve jersey, and wasn't about to wear a nice suit jacket on the outside. So I resorted to the only clothing I had at the office which was suitable: a pair of used boxer shorts. I spread them out across my chest and zipped up. They kept me warm, but they definitely had some assitude, a real stench, once they got sweatied up and a little warm. But it beat getting hypothermia, like I got next week. As if merely knowing about doing this little (stinky) trick to stay warm wasn't enough, I then went home and blogged about it.

- Most of my non-Italian bib shorts are two-tone, with a white tank top/suspender portion, black bottoms. I foolishly got all dressed up the day before yesterday, then sat at my desk finishing up some emails, before putting on my jersey. Boss and snarky colleague's comment as they dropped into the office: "Hey dude. Nice girdle." "Yeah. True. Where's the laces?"


- Spalming a big wad of chamois butter or some other balm on the undercarriage in public, just before the start of a ride. "No, I'm not itching my crabs. Really."

"Who told you to use the balm? I didn't tell you to use the balm.
This is the most public yet of your many humiliations."

- Leaving the office, I get a huge smile from this cute girl in the elevator. On the way out to the parking garage to get on the bike, when I sling a leg over the saddle I realize that my man package was inadvertantly adjusted in a rather unorthodox fashion in my most worn out, sheer-est set of bibs, and then I suddenly understand what the smile was about.

- Cutting, piercing, pinching, scrubbing, cleaning, disinfecting, splattering rubbing alcohol on, sitting on, crying about, yelping because of, and generally putting up with, saddle sores. Pardon me while I go pinch my ass until it bleeds for a while...

- Riding down the sidewalk the other day after a hard thrash, beating traffic by cutting through pedestrians before hopping off onto a side street. Saying "Excuse me" to a really pretty girl, flashing a big smile, getting a funny look in return, and not realizing until about a minute later that my face was completed encrusted with huge stringers of snot, aka "The Snot Mask." Ick.

- Miscalculating the weather, and giving myself hypothermia. Failing to put the heat on in the truck on the way home, thus ensuring staggering around the curbside parking at home like a strangely dressed drunk guy. Walking square, face first into a wall once inside the house. Then failing to pack enough warm clothes 5 days later.

- Feeling my hubris, and then ripping a huge fart just before going on the Sunday ride. Realizing sadly 5 seconds later, it wasn't hot air making that noise. Standing in line at the john at the 'Shack for 5 minutes, stinking like hell, waiting to get into the can to perform some environmental mitigation. Having the same thing happen a month later. Realizing that if my mileage is up, my entire butt is numb, ergo it's likely to happen yet again in the future, and nothing I can say or do will prevent it.

- Getting poison ivy on a long ride, just before a series of work, church, wife's work and neighborhood-related picnics in really hot weather, necessitating the wearing of shorts on shaved, blistered up, scabrous legs. Considering telling people at church it's leprosy, because then they might not stare.

- Having to wear shorts to work after a race crash, because "I'll be damned if I let all that weeping pus ruin my Armani suit." Being so into the cult of roadie-ing that colleagues' derogatory comments about wearing shorts at my desk, with a business shirt and tie, go unnoticed.

- Flatting five times on one 40 mile ride, 4 of them in the last 3 miles.

- Being unable to inflate a mended tire on the roadside. Oh, I had the tools. I was just lacking in everything else, most notably skill.

- Getting to the end of a list like this, and realizing that basically only non-riding embarassments are being discussed - and that this list doesn't even begin to touch on things like getting dropped on hills, cursing out the wrong guy for a dumb maneuver in a race, blowing the closing sprint with some stupid maneuver, or crashing when taking both hands off the handlebars to adjust the sunglasses.

Yeah, this is definitely the wrong sport to be in if you have a problem with humiliation.