

Meanwhile, the world of professional cycling is still reeling from an unexpected confession. Many riders and fans have laughed off the notion that Fabian Cancellara used a hidden motor to win both the Tour of Flanders and Paris Roubaix. However, following his Tour de Suisse time trial win Cancellara has now decided to come clean, though in an unexpected twist it turns out the motor is actually hidden in his body and not in the bicycle:
"I have an engine, but it's in my body," Cancellara stated unambiguously. "This is the strongest one you can imagine." We can safely assume that Cancellara means this literally, since he is Swiss and thus incapable of irony. Incidentally, while bionic doping is a new development in the world of cycling, the practice has long been in place in the field of aeronautics, and I'm very much looking forward to the episode in which Cancellara finally takes on Sasquatch:

It may look campy now, but in the 1970s people regarded this as an exquisitely-wrought metaphor for the energy crisis and the decline of the hippie movement.
Of course, as the saying goes, "The more things change, the more they stay the same"--which is something you realize is completely untrue the very first time you attempt to peel and eat a four week-old banana. It is, however, at least somewhat true of energy crises and hippies, for then as now the two seem to go together like oil and hair. Consider the World Naked Bike Ride, which took place in New York City this past Saturday. In honor of the fact that it has successfully stopped the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, I've prepared a (mercifully brief) World Naked Bike Ride Crotchal Scramble. All you have to do is match the right crotch to the face. If you're right, you'll see them both together, and if you're wrong you'll see Mario Cipollini, the patron saint of naked cyclists.
World Naked Bike Ride Crotchal Scramble!*


By the way, I was impressed to see that no less a personage than screen legend Robert De Niro stopped by in order to have his nipple professionaly painted:



I'm glad to see that, despite the wholesale absence of chamoises, the participants did indeed take the issue of crotchal chafing seriously by using the natural protective qualities of pubic hair. (It's nature's "shammy.")
If nothing else, the World Naked Bike Ride serves to underscore the overly complicated relationship many Americans have with clothing, especially when it comes to cycling. For example, the existence of Lycra cycling clothing continues to vex and confuse both cyclists and non-cyclists alike, and people seem unable to grasp the concept that some rides call for Lycra and some do not. Instead, they divide all of cycledom into Lycra wearers and non-Lycra wearers , and even not wearing Lycra has to have a special name, which is "cycle chic." Moreover, it's apparently even newsworthy, as one reader informs me:

Of course, there is the danger that we may sweat in the process, but the article did have this bit of helpful advice:
The same advice is quite handy when it comes to pants (thanks to the magical fluid-concealing properties of patterns, Mr. Furley could pretty much do anything in his trousers without anybody being the wiser), though the danger with "embracing prints" is that you could end up wearing something like this:
Perhaps no cyclist is as distressingly attired as the "freerider," whose wardrobe manages to simultaneously evoke video gaming, mixed martial arts, and paintball. People in jerseys like these can often be seen assembled at trailheads not riding long-travel bikes, or else riding them for very short distances and shouting things like "Woo-hoo!" the first time they encounter something big enough to compress their suspension. This jersey also manages to combine two of the most dubious design elements in cycling fashion--these being the faux "six-pack" and the tribal tattoo. Surely the designers at Primal are scrambling to outdo them by incorporating both of these as well as some "Terminator"-style circuitry-under-flesh imagery into a delightfully cheesy ménage à fromage.


Ultimately, though, it is not for us to judge whether someone's choice of bicycle or attire is "right" or "wrong." Really, all that matters is that it works for them. Still, fit can be important, and this video spotted by a reader at "Zlogblog" (which is relatively unsafe for work) shows one technique for determining proper standover height:
While wearing a leotard, simply straddle the top tube and move the bicycle backwards and forwards:
