Friday Morning Pulp

First:

I'm done with the tanline gimmick. "Oh! look at me! I'm a cyclist." I've probably had to explain them to too many people in different scenarios more times than I can remember. I think I began to grow sick of them a long while ago deep in my head, and the loathing only recently surfaced into conscious thought. Unlike tattoos, bad hairstyles, piercings, or other forms of body mutilation, these guys are going to take an eternity of focused therapy to get off. Brace yourselves...photo coming...


Apologies for that. Really. The legs are also terribly dry, i'm noticing. These things happen. Back to topic. Before I get into my plan of attack, let me chronicle the history of these guys. It begins with the first time I saw a cyclist with tanlines. The first time anyone sees one of these aberrations is hard to forget. I remember it clearly. It was during the annual Mt. Wilson ride on New Year's day, 2002. I hadn't yet started racing bikes. I was training lots for the upcoming season, my first. I'd joined my first club (Encino Velo) a few months prior, and was stoked with any opportunity for a ride with these guys. It was a learning experience each time. For instance, it was from these guys that I learned that you're not supposed to...uhh...wear anything underneath cycling shorts. A lesson still in practice to this day! Anyhow, I rolled to the start near the 7-11, and saw a guy, maybe 18-20 years old (my age) lifting up his shorts to put on some leg warmers. I noticed two distinct colors in the middle of his thigh. Cartoon-like. I did a double take. My first reaction was of disbelief. No. What? Is this guy diseased? Is it the lighting? Then, being the naive and novice cat-VI cyclist I was, I instantly deduced that "ohhhh...he TRAINS alot, and so, all the time in the sun culminates into what's on his leg. What commitment!. I wonder how many minutes he'll destroy everyone by at the top of wilson?"

Cat IV Days
[photo: Stefan Mayer]

Fast forward a year to 2003. I go from Cat VIII to II, develop a nice even fade from white to olive-ish on both legs (i'd kill to have this back), and would soon enroll at Lee's McRae College in NC. I saw tanlines again. This time, on a guy I knew rather well, my Greek friend, George. We'd ride together often, and I noticed that he'd align his shorts precisely on "that line" on his thigh. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Click! That's how it was done! So for those of you not privy to the elitist workings of the racing cyclists' world....I expose one of the sport's biggest farces! It has nothing to do with training time or devotion or genetics!!! It's just a little pre-ride adjustment! And also, on that day, my tanlines were born. It would be years before they would reach the [hopefully not irreversible] state they're in today.

So this brings us to the present. I really want to get rid of them. I want to bolt out the door for rides 10 seconds sooner by not having to "align". I want to go swimming without facing the confused stares of random french tourists. So yes. Done. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it isn't very easy to undo, but I'll remain patient, and have a realistic goal of being done with them by mid-summer. Now...I ask...has anyone undertaken such an unusual task before? The undoing of cycling tanlines.........I don't think there are any books on the subject. In last week's race, I flipped up the lip of the shorts about 1cm from the top of the line. They looked NO different after the race, and the white part was not even burned. Strange. Should I just wait it out? Or on to more drastic strategies like putting XL SPF on the dark section to try to balance it out quicker? Tanning salons aren't an option out here. But there's lots of sun, and I realize that I'll be "the guy with the white racing stripe" for the next couple weeks/months. So please, suggestions to help me through this plight are welcomed....and needed!