The latest Observer Sports Monthly -- due this Sunday -- looks like becoming a collector's edition. The cover features triple world champion and prime British Beijing medal hope Victoria Pendleton -- stark naked on a bike, in tasteful homage to Lance Armstrong's 1999 Vanity Fair pose.
I predict that this weekend will see pathetic scenes being played out across the UK.
Middle-aged men whose weekend routines do not normally include the reading of a Sunday paper will gather in furtive groups outside newsagents, waiting for them to open. They will seize copies of the Observer and rush to the privacy of their homes where they will tear the sports supplement from its plastic covering and feast their eyes on the loveliness thereon.
Within minutes, obsessive cries will issue from bedrooms across the land:
"Is that a Madone 6.5? I would have thought they could have stretched to a 6.9, myself -- or preferably used a Litespeed or something, although I suppose the Trek is meant as an Armstrong tribute -- and what are those wheels? Bontragers? They could have upgraded to a pair of Zipps at the very least, or some Lightweights. What cowboy put the bar tape on like that? It won't last five minutes. And the bars are at the wrong angle anyway. I wish she'd move her leg, I can't see what seatpost they've fitted....."
Sad, but you know it's true.
2 comments:
You know it's going to end in tears/public humiliation/arrests. Look what happens when this was last taken to it's grubby conclusion
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm
Cyclists are a fragile bunch, no matter what Paul Sherwin and Phil Ligget would have you believe. Many may not be able to cope with the stimulus of bike + girl - clothes.
Yes, I remember that unfortunate case. Although apparently his real offence was not having sex with his bike in the first place, but continuing to do so rather enthusiastically when a couple of cleaners came in.
Cyclists are an odd bunch.
"So, Mr Flandrian, when did you first start thinking there was something wrong with you?"
"It was this morning, Doctor. On the back page of the Guardian, there was this picture of Vicky Pendleton -- with no clothes on, bent over her bike. And the first thing that came into my head was -- I'm glad I use Campag Ergopower, because the cable line on those Shimano's is really ugly"
"I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you -- you are a very sick man indeed"
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