Look good and feel great – Cycle

Reason #300,215 to cycle. You will become more attractive to the other sex. Right? What? Hold on a second. Bradley, why, why did you have to get your veins and bones out like that? Eugh.

I love the famous image of Bradley Wiggins in his hotel room after a stage on the Tour de France. It has everything. A bit too much some might say. It’s far from the triumphant podium images and reveals a cold, hard truth every long distance cyclist knows. Cycling is hard.

The yellow jersey lies seemingly uncared for, draped carelessly on the sofa in a budget hotel room. The cyclist is a husk of his former self, a shell, devoid of emotion, of energy. Head too heavy for his skinny neck, it points to the floor in what should be a moment of triumph. Exhausted.

The bare boned Wiggins is so thin you fear he could slip down the back of the sofa at any moment, never to return. His mother can only cover her eyes upon seeing the image. All bones and veins and sinew, this does not look like a picture of health. Yet this man has just endured one of sport’s greatest challenges. His body is testament to the fact he has suffered.

The cyclist’s body – a cling film wrapped chicken carcass

Many people cycle to keep in shape and rightly so. There comes the point in a cyclist’s life where the sport they love begins to shape them physically as well as mentally. It is not pretty.

I can see the veins in my own legs and cannot escape the fact that my upper body appears to have degenerated into something resembling a prisoner of war. My skin pulled tight like cling film covering a chicken carcass, I wonder if I am winning the battle of the bike.

More uninspiring cycling memes can be found at #CyclingTruths

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