Wearing lycra And so we come to the most contentious allegation of all, that of wearing Lycra.
People in other countries don’t wear Lycra to cycle to work. Dutch people just put on a pair of cycle clips and wobble off to their jobs with no fuss. Chinese and Indian workers cycle in their millions without a scrap of Lycra between them. We in the UK (and North Americans too, I believe) seem to think that cycling to work is an aggressive sporting activity that demands a superhero costume and comprehensive decontamination facilities afterwards. This is cock, actually.
Lycra seems to be a big issue for the cyclist-hater. Is there a correlation between unpopular behaviour and the wearing of cycling shorts? The rise in the numbers of people cycling has led many novices onto the roads, and as with everything the novice will tend to over-prepare. The n00b is also likely to unwittingly commit offences against both common sense and the rule of the road. So perhaps the all-the-gear-and-no-idea factor leads to a slight correlation between Lycra and accidental loutishness. But the worst-behaved cyclists are cycle couriers (IMHO, and sorry to any couriers reading) and they wouldn’t be seen dead in Lycra (not nearly grungy enough).
Most cyclists are men and the Lycra-wearers seem to be an even more male-dominated sub-group. Buns of steel or not, I personally don’t want a display of masculine gluteal achievement in my face of a morning. Far fewer women cyclists wear overt Lycra, perhaps (and I generalise wildly) due to greater self-awareness and more emphasis on the control of their body image. I think it would be wrong to restrict the wearing of Lycra to women below a certain Body Mass Index, so let’s not wear it at all, people.
I believe, without much solid evidence, that the euphonious epithet Lycra Lout is really to blame. Some Associated Press journalist came up with a pejorative tag to brand all their pro-motorist, pro-old-lady stories and it has stuck because it is catchy. Lycra is a perfectly innocent DuPont brand name*. Wearing it to cycle to work is dumb but not really a Bad Thing.
People who disparage Lycra: escape from the bondage of alliteration!
* Yes, I know that division was sold to Koch in 2004. “Lycra has gone to Koch” would be a good slogan in my book.