“Il Campionissimo” Fausto Coppi (1952)

Why cyclists shave their legs is an old & tired story.  Everyone understands the pragmatic explanation;  facilitate massage and ease the care of road rash.

It’s a tradition that is deep and glorious and we love to be a thread in the fiber of the peloton’s spirit.  And,  of course,  the vanity is obvious.  I’ve shaved my legs for more years now than not.   There’s a heightened sense of hygiene and health in shaved legs;  smooth and clean.

And let me add; it’s regardless of age.  In August, 1982, in the city of Lyon, France, after circling a round-about too many times, I found myself face-to-face with an older , deeply tanned cyclist [he seemed to be in his late 70s] who suddenly appeared and began to offer directions [all in French] to a fellow cyclist who, he assumed, was apparently lost.  He rolled up, around and between cars as if none were there,  stout, muscular and robust, with loose fitting shorts, a snug t-shirt and legs like canons, tan and shaved.  The image is permanently fixed in my mind.  I always refer to him as the “Greeter of Lyon.”   I’ll never forget his character and the shaved hearty legs of that septuagenarian.