hairy leg brigade

A bunch of bike riders who worship the journey and the coffee at the end more then their cycling image, some of them even have beards!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

fleeing gazelles

I once heard that the reason that ladies wear high heels is to expose their calf muscles, and the reason that they expose their calf muscles is to show you what it would look like if they were fleeing from you, and the only reason for them to give the perception that they are fleeing from you is to make you want to chase them. I suppose like some kind of animal, a cheetah or a lion, in a bestial way, as if chasing down a gazelle, only to tear at the flesh and eat it up.

Now what better example of a calf muscle then that of a cyclist. Of course there can be 2 sides of the story, one is that you are chasing a cyclist down and you look at their calves as you pass them, and the other is that as you get passed and in a last effort to hold on you look down to see their glistening calves, the vision of which are a final blow to your moral and you get dropped.

So these thoughts were going through my head this morning, as we were riding our hill route in a larger then usual bunch of 6. There were my variations on a theme like imagining that the cluster of the bike in front of me was the escargot I would be enjoying with my coffee before the hour of riding was up. As the rider in front changed gear into a smaller diameter cog, so I bit around my imaginary escargot spiraling until nothing was left but a full tummy. The weight of my tummy pulling me towards the bike, my back arching inwards, my head slowly lifting and my gaze moving up from the cluster up to the seat stays.

Suddenly, what the!!!

I rub my eyes but the image is still there, it is not the common shine of white MOOTS writing on a titanium frame, nor the familiar TREK, nor the OCLV over a woven carbon fiber. On three coloured blocks I read "Precision" "Passion" "Style". Style is an understatement, This is col d' Elgar that I am riding up and struggling to hold on. I have never, ever seen the back of this rider before and if I don't keep pushing and puffing I don't think I will see him for all that much longer. The hill flattens out and I know I am safe, I make a surge for the line just to try and prove the point that I am not out yet. I give a friendly node in the direction of Ash as an acknowledgment, well done mate, I will be watching you.

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posted by MichaelM @ 8:24 AM  0 comments