Confessions of a Badly Dressed Cyclist
Words: Phil Ingham
I guess it all came to ahead just after the New Year. I'd been down to the trail centre at Cwmcarn to do a couple of features for this website and the British Cycling site. They included a review of the trails themselves and the resulting feature inevitably had to include a couple of images of myself in action, so to speak.
It was a dismal day, but the trail riding was fun and Everydaycycling.com editor Eddie Allen and myself snapped away, hopeful of producing some reasonable images. Back at base, we downloaded the day's photos and, sure enough, the weather hadn't helped, but we had enough decent pics to work with.
However, it was with a familiar sinking that I viewed the images of myself riding the trails. Almost inevitably, I looked a mess. Somehow, for my whole cycling life I have struggled to combine the activity I love with any kind of dress sense and style. In this case, I was dressed for the weather, with a neat winter coat. I'd matched my activities - trail riding - with my choice of shorts, and correctly picked baggies. I had a decent pair of modern Cross-country shoes on and an appropriately peaked helmet. There weren't even any serious colour clashes, if you ignore the orange details on the shoes.
Does my Bum look big in this? What time's the next bustle?
However, I'd slightly over-dressed and responded by shedding a layer and gloves and had stuck them in the back pocket of my coat. Big mistake! My backside isn't my most compact feature and with the discarded kit bagged up in the bottom of my coat, and now hanging above it, I'd taken on a distinctly rear-heavy look, not dissimilar to that of a fashionably bustled woman of Victorian times.
So, although for once I'd made no glaring errors in my choice of clothing, I'd revealed my fundamental lack of style by ruining my "look" with this untidy baggy-bottomed thing going on behind me.
I've always been aware of my sartorial failings as a cyclist and this most recent self-inflicted disaster brought home to me, once and for all, that I'm simply incapable of combining style and practicality on a bike. I'm not exactly famous for being well-dressed in my "civilian" life, though my long-suffering wife can make me reasonably respectable when she forces me into a suit. But on a bike, I have finally accepted that I'm a hopeless case.
In the light of this, I've decided to do a short tour of some of my more spectacular failings and have attempted to draw lessons from them. I'm hopeful that they might just help fellow style dyslexics avoid some of the pitfalls of dressing to impress whilst cycling. I've divided them up into four main lessons.
Short on style - those dreadful orange shorts and no socks either!
Lesson 1 - Colour Co-ordination: First up is a shot of me (above) in my early mountain biking days, back in the mid nineties. What strikes you immediately, apart from a wave of nausea, is the disgusting colour of the shorts. They are not cycling specific and appear in a number of images of me around this time. No-one seemed to notice them at the time, but they have gained retrospective notoriety. Even against well-tanned legs they would struggle to convey any positive messages, but against my eternally pale skin, they scream out at you.
Where on earth did I get those overshoes from?
Lesson 2 - Get the Detail Right: This is an image I'm fond of in many ways. It shows me proudly showing off my first half-decent road bike, a GB team cast-off. I'm togged up against the cold and the Goretex top, thick tights and fleece hat all seem appropriate - if you ignore the absence of a helmet. However, closer inspection reveals a truly incredible pair of overshoes in a very garish red. Thinking back, I picked them up in a job lot with a bike I bought from an undertaker in Bridlington! I dread to think where he got them from. Apart from being a danger and distraction to other road users, they are quite extraordinarily garish and inappropriate!
Lesson 3 - Look at the Bigger Picture: Here we have a collection (above and below) of similar shots from the early part of this decade. Look at the ancient helmet, devoid of vents and style, sitting high and proud on that un-tanned forehead! Look at the green walker's t-shirts, functional but again completely devoid of style. Check out the classically black cycling shorts, again setting off nicely the milky white skin. And what about those diverse pairs of non-cycling sunglasses? There's nothing functional or sexy about them and, looking back, I'm frankly at a loss as to why I'm wearing them. The whole ensemble in all three images conveys a message that this cyclist has a perverse desire not to appear stylish. And as for that polka-dot jersey - "king of the mountains, my a***e", as Jim Royal might have said!
The shot below is of me outside our stylish hotel high in the Dolomite mountains. I was enjoying my first off-roading holiday in "real" mountains and having a ball. However, on a day off, my wife and I climbed a nearby mountain on foot and sat down at a lovely café overlooking the majesty and splendour of the area to enjoy a coffee. Just then a mountain biker rolled by. He was clearly a local - Italian - and my wife couldn't take her eyes off him. She was clearly captivated.
I was beginning to get a bit twitchy when she turned to me with an accusatory glint in her eye and asked "why on earth don't you wear kit like that?" Asked to elaborate, she itemised his stylish shorts, colour-co-ordinating with his shoes, jersey and mitts and highlighting his deeply tanned and shaved legs. She pointed to his trendy vented and peaked helmet and the stylish bandana which he wore underneath it. And finally she said "Look at his Bianchi! Even his bike has more style than yours!"
Italy, the home of style.....unless you're a mountain biker from Yorkshire, that is!
That hurt! I was deeply stung by the criticism, though I did enjoy the look of disappointment on my wife's face when this Italian God removed his helmet, doffed his bandana and revealed a balding pate, white and untouched by the sun. So, he did have an Achilles heel. But the barbs had gone home and I duly invested in some new kit as soon as I could.
Lesson 4 - Don't forget the Bike: So, the experience in the Dolomites had a positive effect and I've since chosen better and dressed better for cycling. Latterly I've even taken to occasionally wearing club kit for racing. However, this led to me learning my fourth lesson of dressing to cycle. The club I ride for has a bold and stylish kit combining black and a strong pinkish red. It doesn't do anything for my pale skin, but I do at least look like I'm serious about my cycling. However, the majority of my racing is in cyclo-cross events, where I ride an aged Kona Jake-the-Snake.
You might think the kit has some style about it - but combined with the purple bike with green decals, the issue isn't so clean-cut!
Unfortunately, "Jake" is a rather putrid purple colour. And this doesn't sit well with the pink of my kit. So, before you choose any cycling clothing, or indeed buy a new bike or join a new club, think carefully about how their contrasting influences on your appearance will look together.
My advice is to think very carefully before you join a club whose colours clash with your bike. Shop around. Lean your bike against someone from the club you intend to join and see if the colours clash! Remember, it's a damn sight cheaper to change clubs than it is to change bikes. Now, I'm off to look in the classifieds for a pink 'cross bike - and whilst I think about it, the Halesowen club have purple kit. I wonder if anyone down there is looking for a 'cross bike?
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