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.

Flat out frustrating

So, no sooner am I all pumped up, committed to success and ready to chew up the miles, but I get sidetracked by as stupid and inconsequential a thing as air. Simple old air. You might think that any “air” problems with a guy of my stature (think of an ‘Oompa-Loompa’ in tight, stretchy bike pants) would involve simply catching my breath. As true as that might be all too often, yesterday’s trouble strictly involved keeping a tire inflated.

And it wasn’t even my own! Nope. Here’s what happened: my youngest son, wife and I were getting our bikes and gear (shoes, helmets, gloves, etc.) ready to ride at our usual weekday riding spot, the Rose Bowl in nearby Pasadena. One part of the pre-ride routine is making sure the air in our tires is at 110 psi. Now, if you’ve ever paid attention to the air pressure in your car’s tires, you know that 30 – 35 psi is pretty normal. But for all of you out there not into the sport of shoving a rock-hard, wafer-thin bike seat between your butt cheeks and hunching over hard metal handlebars shaped like ram’s horns for miles on end – road bikes have skinny little tires, with even skinnier little inner tubes inside them. In order for these tiny tires to hold the weight of a rider, the air pressure inside has to be fierce.

When a road bike tire goes flat, it usually happens all at once. One second you’re rolling along at speeds up to 35 or 40 miles an hour, and the next, you’re riding on a metal rim. Not a nice thing to have happen to you. Trust me.

All that is to say that we always check our tire pressure before a ride. So, my son notices that his rear tire feels soft. He attaches the head of our super-high-tech (and expensive – all accessories for cycles are expensive) bicycle pump to the valve on the tire, and – PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS --- all the air left in the tire immediately begins to vent out. Turns out the rubber tube where the valve is attached was cracked from fatigue. I know the feeling.

So, before we can load our bikes into my truck and head over to the Rose Bowl for an early evening ride, young son must have lesson in tire repair. Good son. Watch closely son as Dad shows you how to remove the wheel from its greasy home on the back of your bike, take out the inner tube, take a new inner tube from that funny little cordura bag that is strapped under your bike’s seat, reinstall the new tube, put the tire back on the rim – being extremely careful not to pinch the new tube as you do it, reinflate the tire and put the wheel assembly back into place, ready to ride.

See how easy that was? Huh? What noise? Hang on … let me listen. PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. Are you kidding me? Where the **#!!**$#^!!! is it leaking? It’s a brand new tube!

Turns out, “new” is a relative term in the world of cycling. The spare tube that was new at one time, had been languishing in the bag under my son’s seat for over a year and a half at least. Apparently, tubes go bad. Who knew?

And so, the entire process was repeated with great enthusiasm (or at least significant commentary on my part) and off we went. Upon arriving at our usual starting point in one of the many parking lots at the world-famous Rose Bowl, we unloaded our bikes, slipped into our biking shoes with the clippy-cloppy cleats on the bottom, strapped on our helmets, adjusted our sunglasses, picked appropriate playlists on our iPods, zeroed out our bike odometers, and …
PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Seriously? Again? Ah c’mon!! Well, I won’t repeat the sequence of events that followed since by now, even my son could do it in his sleep. My wife went ahead and began her circuit of 3.2 mile laps around the stadium complex and nearby golf course, while my son and I stayed at the truck, replaced yet another bad tube all the while painfully aware that the sun was rapidly disappearing behind the many McMansions on the surrounding hills.

By the time my son’s bike was fully operational enough to set him free to go and catch up with his mother (the boy is an incredibly strong and fast rider), I have to admit that I was less than motivated to ride. My former enthusiasm and adrenalin had dissipated as fast as the air in my son’s inner tubes.

Being at the Bowl, however, dressed in my silly bike cloths, my wife and son already pedaling away, I figured any ride at all would be better than no exercise and who knows, maybe I could even ride away from some of my stress and frustration.

And you know what? I did. I only logged another 6 miles before the darkness and hordes of just-off-work walkers, joggers, cyclists, dog-walkers and inline skaters convinced the three of us to call it a day.