Just because it comes in your size …

I’ll just come right out with it: Is there a jersey on the planet that doesn’t make a fat guy look like an elephant in a wet suit? It’s bad enough that the standard dress code for cyclists calls for neon-bright, retina-burning colors and wild, psychedelic designs that look like they were dreamed up during a bad LSD trip in the 60s.

But to wrap that sort of fabric around a person of size is not healthy for either the wearer or the sighted public. But try to find cycling clothes in bigger sizes is nearly impossible.

I have yet to find a reliable online (or bricks & mortar, for that matter) source for bike clothes made to fit “real” size people. I’m not really sure who most of the manufacturers use as size models, but it’s nobody I’ve ever ridden with. I mean, my closet has hanger after hanger with jerseys that are the biggest size available online from Pearl Izumi, Performance Cycle, Nashbar, Canari, Descente and Primal Wear and every single one is listed as either a size XXL or even XXXL on the tag. But whoever sizes these things has a really, really sick sense of humor.

Just trying to get one of those puppies over my head and past my shoulders is like stuffing 20 pounds of knockwurst into a 10 pound casing. You can count the hairs on my back through the fabric – it’s stretched so tightly across my torso if I’m even able to wriggle into the things. I mean, most store mannequins wouldn’t fit into these sizes.

And shorts? Puh-lease. You know that popular rubber stress-reliever toy that’s shaped like a reddish pink, squishy alien and you squeeze the thing in your fist and his head expands and eyes pop w-a-a-a-y out of their sockets?

Yeah. That’s pretty much an accurate description of me trying to cram my ass into most pairs of bike shorts available in any given store. Come on, people. We’re not all like the rail thin, teeny tiny, man-boy riders on Team Saxo Bank, for crying out loud. Yeah, yeah, I know – if I put more miles under my wheels and less food in my face I’d find it easier to wear the biking clothes. And I’m truly working on that particular problem. But even having lost nearly 80 pounds in the last four months doesn’t make a shred of difference in finding shorts or jerseys that I can wear without restricting necessary bodily functions like, oh say … breathing. And the flow of blood through my arteries. That sort of thing.

So, while I do have a couple of pairs of shorts that I can manage to stuff myself into and take advantage of the padded chamois imbedded in the fabric (thank the good Lord for THAT invention! – see my post of 4/7/11 http://fatguybiking.blogspot.com/2011/04/agony-of-da-seat.html), most of the time I wind up wearing a large, loose t-shirt instead of a jersey. But I know that no cyclist can ever be given an iota of respect by other riders if he’s seen riding in a spaghetti-sauce-stained Hanes Beefy-T instead of an officially sanctioned jersey and six-panel bib shorts. I might as well be riding a rusted-out Huffy with training wheels and smiley face stickers plastered all over it.

And yet, I can’t be responsible for the consequences if I venture forth in some of the jerseys I’ve tried to squeeze into. Trust me, the last thing I want is to be the unwitting cause of other cyclists careening off the road or straight into the back of parked cars just because I’m riding in public with a way too-tight, jiggling riot of color-saturated stretchiness. I have more consideration for my fellow man than that.

Seriously, I’m pleading with you. If anyone out there knows where I can buy well-made shorts and jerseys made to fit body sizes larger than an anorexic jockey, I’m all ears … and butt, gut, chest like an oil drum and thighs the size of Douglas pines.

Ride on.