I’ve noticed quite a few people in blogging circles are into cycling, and posts about rides show up all the time. So let me put on a layer of armor first: I don’t really have any grand opinion about cycling itself. It’s like fishing, tinkering with electronics, or endlessly messing with a blog—just a personal hobby.
That said, I have to admit something has always bothered me: the riding posture really isn’t very flattering.
One morning, on my way back after dropping off my kid, I ran into a cyclist up close. I know basically nothing about this stuff, so I couldn’t tell you whether it was a mountain bike or some specialized road bike. To me it just looked like a bicycle taller than my e-bike, with very thin tires. The rider was heavily built too, the kind of broad frame that felt almost intimidating as he came past me.
He wasn’t weaving through people at some wild speed—actually the pace looked fairly controlled—but overall he was still a bit faster than my e-bike. What really got me was the angle. Once he passed me, his upper body practically vanished from view, and what remained in front of me was this enormous rear end. In that instant I had the absurd feeling that the air on the whole street had become less clean.
Most of the cycling photos you usually see are from the front or the side. That was the first time I had experienced the rear view of cycling at close range, and it left a deeply unpleasant impression on me.
I ran into similar riders a few more times after that. Most of the time, their hands were gripping the lower curved part of the handlebars, their torso almost parallel to the ground, with their backside lifted high in the air. Whenever that happened, I would deliberately slow down, let them go ahead, and keep my distance as much as possible.
To be fair, I do sometimes have odd little bouts of squeamishness. And when you look up on a public street only to have somebody’s oversized backside effectively shoved into your face, I just can’t make peace with it psychologically.
I’ve occasionally wondered whether that posture has some actual advantage. I even tried imitating it on my own e-bike once. Aside from rubbing against my balls, I didn’t discover anything especially remarkable. The only thing I noticed was that lowering my body seemed to create the illusion of going faster.
So is that really the point? Speed? Aerodynamics? Or is there some secret joy in grinding the base of your crotch against the bike that I’m simply incapable of appreciating?