Tuesday 30 October 2012

Middle-aged men in Lycra


At 9 every Saturday morning a posse of cyclists speed down the street, clad in sleek (and very chic) black and white biking gear.

They’re all part of the local cycling club, heading for the steepest hills in the district. When he’s home, my teenage son is out with the peloton like a shot – and now my husband’s caught the cycling bug and signed up too. He’s had his 20-year-old bike overhauled (“where on earth did this come from?” said the man at the bike shop, marvelling at its retro yellow and pink paintwork), bought a ton of Lycra and begun stockpiling energy bars and flapjacks.

The first weekend he returned four hours (and 80 kilometres) later, ashen-faced and stunned by how tough the ride had been. He hadn’t taken any food, got caught in a downpour with no wet weather gear and suffered a puncture. But his fellow cyclists were kindness personified. They shared their food, lent him a jacket and patiently waited for him to sort his tyre out.  

My husband’s clearly not the only one to have turned into a cycling fanatic. Fired up by Bradley Wiggins’s triumphs, middle-aged men all over the country seem to be getting on their bikes. In the FT’s Life & Arts section at the weekend, editor Lionel Barber wrote about his gruelling weekend bike trip across the Pyrenees – wittily titled “Blood, sweat and gears.” And thanks to his article, I have now discovered I’m married to a “MAMIL” – a “middle-aged man in Lycra.”

But friends down under have coined a different term for middle-aged cycling enthusiasts. My friend Virginia emailed from Brisbane to tell me: “We call them VOMITS - very old men in tights!”

8 comments:

  1. He he he - I've got one here in France too, and recently read Michael Wright (C'est La Folie) in the Telegraph telling tales of his lycra clad summer fun in France - it's contagious I fear!

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    1. Hi Jacqui. Definitely contagious. There are so many middle-aged cyclists out and about these days! I loved C'est La Folie too, by the way.

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  2. If you can't beat them, Emma,... You should ask for some lycra for Christmas!

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    1. Ha ha, Julia. Lycra isn't top of my list. I think I'll stick with my walking boots. Hope your cycling's going well. I am so excited about next year's Tour de France.

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  3. Ha, ha! Great acronyms! My husband keeps threatening that he will get serious once more about cycling, but given that his racing bike has rusted in our garage for 10 years or more, and that he doesn't even cycle to work (10 minutes away), I think I'm safe for a while yet.

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    1. I wouldn't be so sure, Marina. My husband's bike had been in storage since 1992! Now he is obsessed!

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  4. Love the acronyms!! Although maybe we should stick to MAMILs as might get into trouble for calling him a VOMIT! x

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