Beggars Would Ride
Quiet Rituals
The ravages of time are insidious. They rarely make themselves known abruptly, preferring instead to take the slow route into our lives until we find ourselves one day decades in the future shaving the hair off our ears and remembering when we used to spend that time shaving our legs instead.
Okay, maybe it’s just me that has an abundant crop of ear hair, and nose hair, and eyebrow hair; some shitty consolation prize for succumbing to pattern baldness by the time I was 30. Could be worse, I suppose. The razors are the same; Gillette Mach 3. But now, the time and the budget (and by “budget” we mean BUDGET, because seriously, those damn things might as well be made from gold given the price tag and the lock and key security that they are kept under at the drug store) that was once reserved for leg shaving is spent waging the losing war against trying to not look like some semi-bald angry Santa. We take no pride in making Mexican children wail spontaneously with terror at the sight of the sunburned bald old gringo. So we attempt some degree of tonsorial civility.
Wait, what? LEG SHAVING?
Yep. Once upon a time, I shaved my legs. Twice a week. In between those twice-weekly battles with my own genetic predisposition to grow hair pants, I would itch uncomfortably, cultivate ingrown follicular pimples, and silently pray for some sort of depilatory divine intervention. Nevertheless, I would shave my getaway sticks with time sucking, metronomic regularity. With devotion. Because this was a ritual. I shaved my legs because I was a cyclist, and hairless legs, along with helmet strap tan lines, were part of the uniform. Everyone I knew who raced, mountain or road, with the exception of David Wiens, also shaved their legs. Most of the riders I knew who didn’t race shaved their legs as well. The shiny limbs, the tan lines - these were how we signaled to each other that we were societal kin. For over a decade, I religiously adhered to this devotional, awkwardly and uncomfortably burning through Gillette’s finest at a mortifying rate.
Did you know that once upon a time razor disposal slots in bathroom walls were a thing? Neither did I, until just now...
At first, I trotted out the same excuses that everyone else employed. Shaving helps road rash heal faster. Shaving makes massages way more comfortable. Aerodynamics, man. But it was pretty hard to actually believe any of those excuses, except maybe the bit about massages. As if I could afford a massage. None of the other $8/hr bike mechanics I knew could afford soigneurs, either. A buddy I raced was dating a real honest-to-dog professional bike race team soigneur, and she flat out refused to lay a hand on her boyfriend in the massage-y sense, and extended that same refusal to all his dirtbag bike mechanic friends. But did we all shave our legs? Hell yes we did. Cycling was our religion, the bike our altar, the bike shop our church, races our flagellation and the crucible of our zeal. We were the faithful. And shaving legs was how we signaled our faith.
Some number of years in, I began to question my faith. Racing hurt. A lot. All the time. The moments of soul cleansing clarity began to grow farther apart. As for the gams, I got tired of the ingrown hair zits. Of the itching. I had long since given up on the misguided notion that shaving my legs was in any way making me faster. It wasn’t, but it sure made camping a lot more uncomfortable when the stubble mixed with sunburn, dirt and sleeping bags. At some point, I put the razor down. The exact date when is hazy, but I think it was right around the time I decided riding one speeds was no longer sparking joy. Which would’ve been about two full decades before I even knew one speeding was the mountain biking equivalent of that whole Marie Kondo zeitgeist, or more or less in line with around when the Y2K bug was supposed to end our civilization.
The irony is not lost on me that while there are legions of men shaving their legs for any number of reasons, there are also people out there designing leggings that look hairy, also for any number of reasons...
The loss of that ritual, though, had a knock-on impact on my faith. A few years later, I no longer raced. I didn’t miss the constant pain in my lower back or the twinging knees, but at the same time, I couldn’t ride “just for fun” without feeling like I was somehow incomplete. Leg shaving had been one of many defining rituals. There were also the Friday nights at the shop prepping the bike for racing on the weekend, Tuesday all-day LSD rides with enforced casual pace and frequent but also ritually prescribed café stops, interval and hill repeat days, ice baths, cold ocean dips after cyclocross races, pre-race spaghetti feeds, road trips to races in shitty cars that may not make it home (but it’s fine, because we’ve got bikes!), tv parties to celebrate the acquisition of some new bootleg dvds poached from Eurosport coverage of the World Cups…
I stopped shaving, and all the rest of that stuff kinda fell by the wayside as well. Salaries, taxes, budget meetings, home remodels and hairy legs filled the void. The tan lines faded. The waistline expanded.
It took about a decade to come to terms with not being fit or fast anymore. A decade of bargaining with myself, rationalizing time off the bike, chafing against the natural compromises that we all have to face at some point or another. Then it took about another decade to turn down the volume of my hypercritical inner voice and really begin to enjoy riding bikes again, without performance expectations, but also without so many ice baths... And slowly, as I’ve found my way back to a place where bikes are once again cleanly dovetailed into my day to day existence, new rituals have begun to take shape, ones that fit into the rolling junkshow that defines my life without threating to derail or dominate it.
Every long day driving begets a minimum 2 hour ride the next day as a reward. Every road trip gets fed into Trailforks and stops are planned around riding opportunities. They do not have to be epic, but there better be at least a few feet of singletrack. Every morning, there will be stretching. Every evening, there will be magnesium tablets and BCAA capsules. Hydrate, you fool. Rides under 2 hours are business casual; waterbottles and tools in back pockets, wear whatever you like. Rides over 3 hours, pay attention to the weather, wear the backpack, careful with booze consumption the night before. The backpack is always ready, has its own tools and a 100oz bladder that I fill to 80oz. Most days, my riding jersey is a long sleeve snap button Wrangler and a Merino wool base layer. At the start of each ride, check tire pressure. At the end of each ride, lightly clean and relube the chain.
It's nowhere near as time consuming, and I don't get silky smooth legs. But the daily BCAA and magnesium chowdown is one of those age-based rituals/metaphors that goes right up there with sunscreen and stretching as something I probably shoulda started doing 40 or so years ago...
My rituals now seem so subdued, so civilian, compared to the discipline I used to impose upon my riding. I’m waaaaaay slower these days, and am absorbing the reality that I will likely never really be able to rip anyone’s legs off again. But hell, back in the day, the only ass I could reliably kick on any given day was my own, so that’s no real loss.
But then again, I am really enjoying riding bikes again, in ways that I thought I had maybe lost track of forever. My back doesn’t hurt. My leg stubble never drives me crazy anymore. And while the rituals of my riding now are quieter, less monastic than those I used to carry out, they are still rituals. They are still devotion. I am still a cyclist. And now I shave my ears instead of my legs. So it goes.
Comments
Offrhodes42
4 months ago
This is the type of article that keeps us coming back. I hit 50 last year. Racing ended many moons ago for me. There is a small group of us that meet at 5am 9 months out of the year to ride. Going fast these days is much slower than it was 20 years ago. The act of riding bikes with friends is still one of the high points of the day...I still shave my legs though.
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fartymarty
4 months ago
and sticky plasters don't stick that well to hairs... One of the joys of #FlatPedals4Life (or as long as it lasts) is constantly having wounded shins despite having grippy shoes and pedals.
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Maximum Radness
4 months ago
I have a giant pink cone flower tattoo right on “THAT” spot. The tattoo artist was like: I can’t do anything with this.
I just had her fill pink all around the “one giant deep numb scar” looks sharp with that tall black sock tan too.
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Maximum Radness
4 months ago
I find that the slow, older and “civilian” rituals are the more monistic rituals. Ease up on the booze????
Wait. Monks made beer. Ok.
I’m teaching my kids the old guy way, so hopefully their chains last longer and they can fix drainage when they come across that type of trail…explain dirt dvd’s while we watch them... Patience of a teacher, speed of a grampa, technique of Nico voulioz whomever that was……..
The most important take away to the aging racer turned slow, less sendy trail rider- for me at least is:
You will not take this powerful tool away from me. You (them fucks) can pry the decent spec’d, monastically maintained, responsibly paid off mountain bike from my dead, cold & arthritic hands.
Thanks mike.
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Mike Kittmer
3 months, 3 weeks ago
Amen to that. Find me fallen over and dead trail side and know I left happy.
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We_Are_One_Composites
4 months ago
This is perfect. Your timeline is very similar to many other ex-leg shaving, racing, LSD riding, coffee shop living, racers. 20 years to go from wanting to be at the front of the pack, to learning why you even started this thing called Mountain Biking in the first place. What a ride it's been.
Stoked you are finding the roots of your joy once again!
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Andy Eunson
4 months ago
I went through all that. Now might shave the legs in spring mud season with a hair razor. Easier to wash off mud and knee pads don’t yard out the hairs when I get sweaty and sticky. I think at some point in my 50s I decided that training, actual structured training was no longer dignified. Dude, what are you trying to prove at this age?
I have noticed that at 66 that I cannot ride like I used to. I have to slow down, go on fewer epic rides. I need the recovery more than ever. If you’ve ever had a dog that lived to be old you notice that they are like a lithium ion battery. The battery is good for a long time than suddenly loses the ability to hold a charge and it dies. I’m like that now. I need a fair bit more time to recharge and I run out of juice more quickly now. It is more healthy to accept that truth than to deny reality and keep training like fool. That said, I’m not sitting on the rocking chair out front yelling at kids. Nor am I the retro grouch pining for that Stumpjumper Team from 1988 that was the best bike ever. What those people are pining for in reality is not the equipment of that day, but the lithe strong body they had then.
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TristanC
4 months ago
I was thinking about rituals this morning when I got up early to work out. I'm training for an ultra endurance race this fall, but in a sense I've been training for ultra racing continuously since I got into it a couple years ago. The thought that popped into my head was, "When do I get to stop training?" and my answer was, "I guess I don't, this is my life now."
I'm not sure it's true - am I really going to keep getting up early and picking up heavy things and setting them back down again for the next 50 years? Maybe!
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Maximum Radness
4 months ago
Health is wealth.
Read more ferrintino.
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taprider
4 months ago
@TristanC if you are lucky
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Kos
4 months ago
Ah, leg shaving. Never did pick up the razor. In my neck of the woods and circle of mtb racing buddies "leg shaver" was a derisive term akin to "roadie" (even though we all did some training on the road).
Ah, the put-down presumed superiority of youth!
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fartymarty
4 months ago
Weirdly tho it makes more sense for mtbers to shave as we fall off a lot more.
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Mike Ferrentino
4 months ago
But we don't abrade quite the same was as road riders do. More clothing, lower speeds, no pavement. Even still, the road rash argument for shaving seems like pretty thin ice to me.
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fartymarty
4 months ago
It's more pedal pins vs shins and being a dumb ass and riding without knee pads (i'm trying hard to stop that one as it's dumb). But you are right coming off on the road would be horrific.
Plus most rides are at night and the missus hates blood on the sheets from my war wounds....
Real thin ice...
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ReformedRoadie
4 months ago
Lets be clear...the number one reason to shave your legs as a roadie is vanity. You look goofy in lycra with sasquatch legs. And, if you are a serious racers, you probably have ripped legs you don't really want hidden under a layer of fur.
The road rash....shaving helps there with the wound and healing. If you're a pro, regular massage is more effective without the hair (so 0.004% of riders)
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[email protected]
4 months ago
I agree, the only justification for shaving is massage, the only reason is vanity.
Even a very casual amateur like myself benefits from a massage after a big day on the bike. I have never had anyone else massage my legs but would often do it myself and, believe me, having hairy legs massaged HURTS- but still helps hugely with recovery.
But for all the pain, i still couldn't bring myself to shave my legs
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taprider
4 months ago
caked on dried mud rubs off shaved legs easier
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Perry Schebel
4 months ago
for sure! i shaved back in my xc racing days; certainly developed empathy for those who do - hard work maintaining silky smooth gams. and to think many people do it for purely aesthetic reasons (yes, i recall pulling out the "practical justifications" on a regular basis to enlighten non-cyclists).
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taprider
4 months ago
best answer to "why"?
is "girls like it"
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Kos
4 months ago
Gotta say that my wife is more in the camp of "your legs better not look better than mine" w/r/t shaving!
Mike Ferrentino
4 months ago
I was so geeked out on everything about cycling that even though I didn't even own a road bike for the first five or six years of "my life as a mountain biker", I was totally down the euro road/cyclocross pro worship rabbit hole before I really had a chance. But I am pretty sure that leg shaving roughly coincided with my move to San Francisco and subsequent immersion into bike shop serfdom - I recall showing up for a ride with my old construction working friends from down the peninsula, and upon catching sight of my shaved pins, my buddy Dean arching an eyebrow and asking "so, how's life in San Francisco ? "... with an exaggerated lisp.
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mrbrett
4 months ago
The worst kinds of ear hairs are those long bastards that somehow stick straight out and tickle in the wind.
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Mike Ferrentino
4 months ago
Ah yes - those are the ones that somehow escape detection in the bathroom mirror (cue joke about reading glasses), and you don't realize are out there signaling to the whole world like some giant cockroach antenna that you are old and don't have a personal grooming attendant. At which point, upon becoming aware of the offending hair; glance down, make sure shirt is buttoned correctly and fly is zipped up. Just in case. These things usually happen in series. Dementia is going to suck, for sure.
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Allen Lloyd
4 months ago
Reading this brings back memories. For years I rode with a group called the Spokejunkies. It was a casual group who in general had a disdain for racing and a penchant for group rides and good eats. To this day if a long ride is not followed by some homestyle meal it just doesn't feel right.
The rituals I miss are the sessioning... well sessions. When we found a feature, we would try it over and over again. I remember a particular log that I think took me 12 tries to clean. Features would mark the rest spots where we would mother up. Features were the subject of post ride story telling. Features were the thing that got me off the couch and to the rides.
This past weekend I rode with a couple of friends and one really wanted to figure out a tricky switchback. I think she rode it 12 times and we provided coaching and support. It brought me back to that place I love of watching progression.
The problem I have is where I ride today the trails are fun but not especially challenging. I can ride from my house with access to around 100 miles of trail. But there is not a single feature I can't clean 95% of the time. What I miss is that feeling of failure over and over again followed by that just right adjustment to ride a bike over something odd.
A couple weeks ago I spotted an odd rock with a perfect backside but an off camber wall on the other side. There is not a small trail to the rock and so far only one set of tire marks across it. Unfortunately that tire mark has a foot mark in the duff next to it. I will spend most of the winter itching to get back out next spring and figure that thing out.
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fartymarty
4 months ago
Allen - what are you riding? This is where I have found a HT / rigid bike fun in that it keeps things spicy.
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Allen Lloyd
4 months ago
My daily is a first gen Hightower or the base Stumpjumper I bought for my son a couple years ago.
My other bike is a 1990's El Mariachi that does exactly what you are talking about :) The thing is other than drops there are still no features that I can't ride on the hardtail. I really miss logs from back east, here in Montana logs just get cut out due to the shared use of most of our trails.
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fartymarty
4 months ago
Sounds like you have very gravel friendly terrain. It would be hard to stay motivated when you get used to janky tech trails.
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ReformedRoadie
4 months ago
Yes...razors in bathroom walls were a thing.
A friend was doing a renovation; he, another friend and myself demo'd the first floor ceiling.
One good rip of the drywall and it was literally raining razor blazes on us...
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Cr4w
4 months ago
That's my big fear as I get older and question some of my rituals. Could losing this one be the trigger that undoes the whole thing? I still say: you don't get slow because you get old, you get old because you get slow. When you decide to stop charging hard is when actual aging sets in. Even with sometimes waning enthusiasm I try to charge as hard as I ever did but now I diligently make room for more rest and more outside-of-riding lifting, mobility and cross training. Oh god so much stretching and mobility work.
Might want to consider getting ears and nostrils waxed. Those trimmer machines don't work very well.
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fartymarty
4 months ago
> you get old because you get slow
Sage advice.
I'm 50 in a few months and still try to sensibly charge hard but sensibly and when i'm feeling it. I'm also trying to do a lot more yoga this year.
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Cr4w
4 months ago
Gotta avoid that boomer approach to fitness where they take pills when things hurt (in particular back, knees, hips, neck). No. Go to a physiotherapist (or appropriate professional) and figure out why that thing hurts and work on that area. If my neck hurts it's because of a shoulder mobility issue. If my back hurts it's almost always a hip mobility issue. If something hurts it means there's a systemic problem to fix the system and get back on the bike sooner. The whole ignore-it-for-years with Advil approach will just make that issue harder to resolve later.
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Mike Ferrentino
4 months ago
I am close enough in age to be considered "boomer cusp", and man, the way that SO many people, be they boomer or gen-x or whatever, happily chomp down NSAIDs without a second thought - for everything from headaches to barely even raised temperature to modest aches and pains - kind of blows my mind. Enough people are downing this stuff in large enough quantities that ibuprofen and acetomeniphen are showing up in most of our water supplies now. Ick. Not sure if it's the old school "suffer through it" kiwi upbringing, or the notion that I don't really consider non-prescription NSAIDs to be "druggy" enough to warrant consumption, but I'm just not a fan.
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Grant Blankenship
4 months ago
Back when I pretended to race XC and endurance-y things, in ye olden NORBA days, we called ibuprofen "Masters' Candy." Just shoveling that stuff after a race was the joke. And as I write this pushing 50, with ankles that need alone time to get their game together in the morning, I see what a snarky thing it was to say about someone on the (gasp!) north side of 30.
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cxfahrer
4 months ago
Bah - wait until you get 60. When I was 50 I still was one of the fastest of our group, but from 55 that went downhill. And the hair started growing ever faster in places except on my head.
There will be a tipping point when your riding buddies won't wait for you, and you start thinking about motors. Those "light-assist" eBikes..
What is magnesium in pills good for? Better not mess with this stuff with cardiovascular issues, I guess.
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Mike Ferrentino
4 months ago
Magnesium was something I never paid much heed to until Yuri Hauswald informed me that it was one of his recovery secret weapons. Bone health, muscle recovery and sleep seem to be some of the big selling points. What I noticed after starting them was mainly muscle based - I hurt less the next day after solid rides. Same goes for BCAAs - less muscle pain, more complete recovery.
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Brad Nyenhuis
4 months ago
X2.
The difference between turning 50 and 60 were light years apart.
At 50 I was still a badass, fighting off the younguns (on the DH, that is).
At 60 it was, "Dear God, just let me hold on!"
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Timer
4 months ago
„you get old because you get slow.“
I’m not so sure about that.
I’m not at that age yet, but I’ve seen quite a few people who used to be fast or very good at their sport but thought they could keep going the same pace as in their youth. Far too often they would blow themselves up. Sometimes so badly they had to give up the sport. My takeaway is that knowing my limits becomes ever more important as I get older.
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Cr4w
4 months ago
It's all of that. Plus being smart about it. Knowing when to take extra rest. Knowing limits. Pushing hard when the stars align. Do a ton of cross training and mobility work to round out your game - which pays huge dividends in every area of your life.
The saying really should be 'focus on the keeping the machine working well so you can charge as hard as before but only some of the time' but that doesn't roll off the tongue the same way. Gotta be diligent if you want to maintain access to that level of performance.
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fartymarty
4 months ago
Cr4w - this is exactly what I am trying to do so I can hopefully keep riding as long as possible. Plus trying to improve technically.
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mnihiser
4 months ago
Speaking of shaving, I'm too cheap for Gillette so I buy the store brand cartridges. Said store has apparently figured out the money to be made with ever-changing standards; you buy a new pack of blades and they don't fit the old handle. Easy fix was using some pliers to remove the plastic attachment from the cartridge. Did that with the latest purchase... nope, still won't fit. Five minutes with a Dremel and it's min-max for the win.
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mrbrett
4 months ago
Min-max razor:
$20 Merkur stainless handle (lasts indefinitely)
$30 100-pack of Japanese made Feather Diamond blades
Just toss the blades into your bathroom wall when you’re finished with them. The good news is you get a new blade every shave or two, depending on how things go so Mikes wall is going to fill up fast! You can also pick the used blades into the package or recycle them if you insist.
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Peter Horne
4 months ago
@mikeferrentino Pasta before the ride, reloaded for 2024:
https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-how-to-control-blood-sugar-spikes
Even for us over 50's there is time to heal the damage from a lifetime of processed carbs.
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Brad Nyenhuis
4 months ago
Hey Mike, great article, as always. At 63, I'm loving riding as much as ever, but the rituals have definitely changed from speed gain based to performance decline abatement based.
I can still rail a janky downhill but my speed is now fully dependent on help from gravity (God created gravity and who am I to fight with with God's creations).
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