Appropriate Attire
I joined a nia class tonight, mostly because I had never heard about nia and thought that it might be a good idea to try it out. The description of the class said that it was a mix of yoga, tai chi, dance and other exercise forms. It would seem that wearing some sort of workout clothes and maybe even athletic shoes might be a good idea. The woman who showed up wearing velvet pants, a lacy shirt and dressy shoes( maybe these are her workout clothes) reminded me of another incident involving bicycling and inappropriate dress.
A group of us were in France to get an idea of the bicycling opportunities in the Loire Valley. None of the group members knew each other and obviously only one of us had every bicycled before. Now, the others claimed to be cyclist and one woman proudly displayed her cycling gloves, which she carried around with here everywhere, even when we weren’t cycling. These were some sort of badge of honor that proclaimed to the world that she was a cyclist. When I met this woman at the airport she kept these gloves visible. This seemed odd to me and had quite the opposite effect than what she had obviously hoped to achieve. I knew of no real bicyclist who feels the need to carry around cycling equipment to prove to the world that he or she his a cyclist.
Our first cycling outing was an organized group tour, the kind with hundreds of people who ride a set route with distance options. Because of time limitations, we settled on the whopping 10-mile route, really 16 km because we were in France after all. The glove carrying woman came dressed in what I called a negligee as a shirt and a scarf around her neck. I immediately thought of a phrase from my high school ALM French textbook, which was ” A man has been suffocated by his scarf” or something to that effect. This glove woman rode with this scarf dangling precariously near her front spokes. Obviously, an experienced cyclist would know exactly how far she could bend over before getting this scarf caught.
The route passed by castles, vineyards and small wineries that we stopped and visited along the way. We had a pleasant lunch in a small village and took several hours to ride the 16 km. I must say that it was definitely a shock when I realized even though we took almost four hours to do the route that we had gone such a short distance, but distance isn’t everything. We were entertained by busker types along the way and really soaked in the ambience. This was France after all so there was no hurry whatsoever. At the end of the ride, the best thing that can happen when visiting a foreign land happened to us: A local invited us to a cafe for a coffee. What luck to have this happen. Interacting with the locals is the reason that I travel by bicycle and it is good fortune that we got this invite on our very first day of riding. Oh, but Ms. Gloves complained about the idea of sitting down because her butt hurt from the extensive riding of the day. She was exhausted as well. We declined this invitation, a good indicator of how the rest of the trip would progress. Even with those gloves, this woman immediately fell asleep in the van. The future wardrobe included a bustier, which may have been padded for the serious glove-wearing cyclist.
Later this cycling expert told our hosts that everybody in the US rides bicycles to work. Guess that I am not observant.
I am no fashionista. I buy mostly clearance apparel to wear while cycling. I have had good luck with both Nashbar and Performance shorts. My one splurge to see if there was a difference was on a pair of Hind shorts. I figured that for the much higher price that there had to be something better about them. I hated them and they didn’t last as long as my more economical Nashbar and Performance shorts that seemed to be indestructible. I did try a Terry model of shorts and like those quite a lot because they fit so well. I like those so much that I will sew the three corner tear that I got when I sat on some rocks in Cayman Brac. I am so glad that the shorts are black and the repair will be unnoticeable.
Better go find my gloves so that I can be a real cyclist.