The Unwritten Rules of Cycling

If you know a sporty parent or two, you might have encountered the trope-tastic phenomenon that is the soccer mom, or perhaps the football dad. These two entities exist as epitomes of controlled chaos, as they rage incessantly over their child’s attempt at athletic conquest at the sprightly age of twelve. They have no investment other than a few bucks for some local club or organization, as well as some bits of equipment, so the sharp spittle exploding from their mouths when their child decides to pick a dandelion on the field is entirely intrinsic. Now, imagine a sport in which equipment and other costs are through the roof, and imagine even more the reaction when an $8,000 extra-small time trial bike doesn’t land your kid a victory at your regional cycling championships.

Junior cycling, in the industry, is considered a nightmare. Generally speaking, it’s the perfect way to get a bunch of youngsters with underdeveloped motor skills to race together at the low end of the average car’s driving speed atop extremely expensive equipment. After the Lance era came and went, a whole wave of parents wanted to see their son on their TV with the holy USPS logo emblazoned on their chest; the result was an absolute cluster of kids toeing the start line of every local race and effectively turning criterium circuits into something out of Mad Max. No seasoned veteran is safe from the occasional kid pulling off the front of their group after making an explosive six-second effort that got nobody nowhere, as he hurtles backward at an alarming speed relative to the rest of the peloton.

Generally speaking, juniors are where we’re going to gather most of our future professionals. With the increasing urgency for people to have their entire career mapped out before they’re old enough to drink, it’s harder to come across someone dropping out of a full-fledged job to pursue a career in athletics. If anything, they’ll drop out of high school like Alberto Contador. It’s common to see the under-19 category quickly become the most hotly contested on any race day, as those fresh hormones combine with an aspiration for a future in the sport. From personal experience, I can recall numerous occasions where kids have been hostile toward each other to such an unprecedented degree that I ended up deciding to take a hiatus from competition, and I had no plans to return until my racing age put me with some more sensible people.

Ultimately, the juniors are like a petri dish experiment. They exist without influence from the rest of the world, yet it’s the only thing officials are willing to observe. America has made a new name for itself in its collegiate circuit, with an arguably much more relaxed atmosphere that can provide just as much potential for aspirants, even if their “time” has passed; despite this, for some reason, it’s not as easy for scouts to identify them as “talent,” and they typically end their time with the sport on graduation day. This is a huge waste of momentum, and we are implored to find an alternative route to success in the industry that doesn’t require one to be going hard from day one. There needs to be a better on-ramp for people interested in starting up who did not get their first carbon rims before high school, because the current climate is showing no promises of a future for Americans in Europe.

A bit more than twenty years ago, American cycling was changed forever by a man whose name will forever exist in infamy. Lance Armstrong, after a decade and a half of controversy surrounding his record-breaking seven Tour de France wins, has been brought down from his pedestal as one of the champions of cycling’s biggest era of doping. Nobody was surprised, given the fact that he managed to beat out multiple doping competitors while also immediately off the couch from a bout with testicular cancer, but it raised a question: who’s going to dive into the performance-enhancing drug ring next? While we have some major leads, such as Chris Froome, who has won four Tours, others manage to slip under the radar due to their newfound insignificance, such as Froome’s former rival, Alberto Contador.

Chris Froome exists as the concept for an ideal cycling body. He’s wiry and lean, he can contort himself into any aerodynamic shape imaginable, and he puts out power like a team of horses. All in all, he’s a powerful guy, revolutionizing the sport with his high-cadence pedaling style and touting one of the most well-budgeted teams in recent history, Team Ineos (formerly Team Sky). His claim to fame took a sharp turn downward in recent years, however, after a scandal at the 2017 Vuelta a Espana was brought about by a few too many puffs from his asthma inhaler. He was nearly banned from competition, but a sudden decision by the UCI put him on the startlist for the next year’s tour days before its commencement. Many were furious about the overlooking, but it became insignificant after Froome did not take home a fifth win in 2018.

 

Alberto Contador, on the other hand, exists as a bridge between the Lance era and the Froome era. While coming up through the ranks as a contemporary on Armstrong’s Discovery Channel team in the ’00s, he managed to stretch his career out enough to fully retire only a few years ago. Contador, unlike Froome, was actually caught in his doping misadventures. He was stripped of his 2010 Tour and 2011 Giro d’Italia titles, and still resents the decision to this day, despite his ungratefulness toward being allowed back into the sport at all. He claimed the drug that scored him the ban was ingested via a “bad steak,” which is just as asinine an excuse as you think it is. He continued his career until his retirement in 2018, and has left the sport with heaping piles of money and a clear conscience about his wrongdoings, somehow.

Ultimately, doping has its place in the sport of cycling. It’s hard to admit, considering my fervent desire to get more people interested, but it’s hard to get past the precedent that has been set by many professionals. American juniors interested in the sport have declined dramatically since the end of the Lance era, and the sport as a whole has reached a recession. With hope, however, there is a chance we can overcome this dark period and get kids on bikes again. It’s a healthy, practical, and generally non-aggressive sport that would be perfect to help youngsters develop a spirit of sportsmanship that doesn’t require kicking or tackling anybody. Until then, cyclists like me will have to get used to speeding down streets like West College and listening for the inevitable drunken cry: “Faster, Lance!”

 

As the Belgian Tour de France legend Eddy Merckx once said, “Don’t buy upgrades; ride up grades.” He was referring to the idea that high-tech bike mods will never outweigh the value of good, old-fashioned time in the saddle. Many seasoned road cyclists will tell you that consistency is key when it comes to training, and only by utilizing a rigorous training routine can an aspiring weekend warrior become a member of the professional peloton. This idea doesn’t seem to reach everyone, though, as the recreational weight weenie exists as the nightmarish yet bottomless financial well of every bike shop on Earth. The appearance of a weight weenie is distinct: typically clad in a mesh jersey, they straddle their five-figure-priced steed with an engraved look of skepticism, wondering if there is any way he can continue to shed weight from his bike.

Since the beginning of the modern era of the sport, marginal gains have played into the very essence of cycling culture. As Tim Krabbe notes in his book, The Rider, French cyclist Jacques Anquetil used to remove his bottles from his bottle cages before big climbs and put them in his back pockets, with the idea that doing so would remove weight from his bike. As foolish as that sounds, he managed to win five Tours with that mindset. The International Cycling Union (UCI) currently has a minimum weight requirement of 6.8 kilograms (around 15 pounds) to combat the possibility of companies taking this too far and creating structurally unstable frames, but this hasn’t stopped those with deep pockets from breaking such a regulation on their local roads. Companies such as Trek have taken jabs at creating the world’s lightest production road bike, with their Emonda coming in at around 13.4 pounds. This featherweight machine may cost a whopping $11,000, but that is a worthy price to some of the more eccentric consumers in the industry.

All in all, there is some merit that can be granted to the ideology of the weight weenie. While it has been proven that factors like aerodynamics have a much more pivotal role in making a bike faster, there’s just something about cruising around on a bike that you can lift with your pinky finger that makes riding it that much more special. It’s a dying art, as carbon fiber parts are becoming increasingly expensive by the day, but it’s hard to doubt that someone out there is still on the hunt for marginal gains. Eddy Merckx still stands with the correct idea about how a true athlete is made, but sometimes you just have to appreciate other people’s needs to geek out.

To be frank, urban hipster culture in the early 2010s stands as an example of a caricature that will outlast its underlying culture by eons. It’s hard for the mind to stray away from the stereotypical image in one’s head of a flannel-clad, coffee-drinking music snob glazing over the ‘vintage’ section of the local underground bookstore; however, one sartorial faux pas exists in my mind as their most outstanding misrepresentation of another culture: the cycling cap. After the release of films like Premium Rush, the contemporary crowd hopped onto the trend of cruising around on brakeless fixies and, ever notably, wearing cycling caps as casual attire. The appearance is distinct, as it makes the top of one’s head look like a shrink-wrapped chicken breast wearing a tennis visor; despite its looks, however, its history spans nearly as far back as the bicycle itself. To purists, the introduction of the headwear in pop culture is utter blasphemy, but the uptick of this fad has allowed a globally renowned sport to find a comfortable resurgence in the States (albeit with a somewhat pretentious group of individuals).

Functionally, cycling caps emerged in an era long before the advent of the modern helmet, the professional application of which only becoming required in 2003 after a fatal crash involving Kazakh rider Andrei Kivilev. Caps served as a means of sweat absorption, protection from the sun and rain, and provided sponsors with more of that all-important ad space, with logos most popularly being displayed on the visor (or peak, as it’s more commonly known). A cyclist who finds himself the winner of a race in the professional circuit will still occasionally don one of these cotton casquettes while stood atop the podium to maximize brand publicity, as they offer significantly more legible surface area than the typical baseball cap (such a look was popularized by a certain American, of whom we do not speak, in the late 90’s and early 00’s; it’s experiencing a quick death following that of his career).

In the end, it’s important to acknowledge the impact of the humble cap beyond its glaring, conventionally unattractive nature. It represents the quirky history of one of the world’s most gruesome and demanding sports, as well as the small nuances that separate a professional from your average coffee shop socialite. While it’s certainly more functional (and legal, in some countries) to be wearing a helmet instead, it’s hard to come across a seasoned veteran of the sport without one tucked underneath, for good measure. Some still argue that it can even serve as a proper alternative to sunglasses. Furthermore, it’s common for a group of well-invested geeks to find themselves enveloped in a debate about its smallest details, e.g. whether the peak should be worn pointing up or down (there is no right answer, it seems). It’s a simple piece of cotton, but the depth of its character allows it to exist as more than a mistake of some sadistic fashion deity hellbent on disturbing the sanctity of your local cafe.