THAT'S MEN:Time to consult your cycling specialist, writes PADRAIG O'MORAIN
I DISLIKE two kinds of men on bikes.
The first are dressed like wasps and flash along as though they are rocket-fuelled. The second are the wretches who speed on footpaths with no concern for the safety of pedestrians and who would regard as quaint the idea that some of us might actually want to walk on our pavements without having to fear for our lives.
The first kind are the ones who I find myself to be the most dangerous – I mean to themselves.
There you are driving along, perhaps about to turn into an entrance. Ahead of you a car is reversing out of a driveway. Another car is quite close behind you. You check your mirrors, your blind spot and all the rest of it and there is His Majesty, with his yellow bib and his shorts and his knapsack, bulleting along.
By the time you figure out how to keep him alive he will be on top of you. So you stop in the middle of the road and if you are lucky you won’t be rear-ended by the driver behind you.
Then, although you have gone to great lengths to keep him alive, this paragon on two wheels will throw you a dirty look as if your stupidity can neither be understood nor equalled.
These are not your ordinary cyclists going along at a reasonable pace and whom the motorist can fairly easily avoid hitting.
These are a different breed altogether, ageing managers I always assume, spawned by some dreadful three-way mating of recession, Green ideas and a desire to live forever.
Still, I think it was unreasonable of me to smile when I found an article on webmd.com informing me that men who spend too much time in the saddle increase their risk of erectile dysfunction.
Says the article, “A male cyclist can place a significant percentage of his weight on his perineum, an area between the scrotum and the anus where the nerves and arteries to the penis pass.
“This pressure – and a narrow saddle seat – can injure the arteries and nerves.”
A serious matter, not to be taken lightly. I will chastise myself by going outside and thumping on my car door while giving myself dirty looks.
The answer, according to the article, is to sit upright on your bicycle and to get a special seat which redistributes your weight to the sitting bones of your buttocks.
You would need to consult your cycling specialist about this.
It’s the “nose” or raised area along the saddle that does the damage. While you can get saddles with a groove down the middle or holes in the centre, these can make matters worse by adding pressure on either side of the groove, according to one expert.
The key safety factor is a wide seat which allows you to sit up and farther back. Might I add that slowing down would also help.
Which brings me to men who fly along the footpaths with no regard whatsoever for the safety of other people. Women do this too, but the culprits are mainly men.
I saw a garda stopping one of these gentlemen recently as he flew along listing to his iPod. Mind you, some of these fellows making free with the footpaths are the sort you would not look at sideways if you valued your life – all that can be said for what they are doing is that it gets them out of your neighbourhood more quickly.
I suspect that I have now offended a great many cyclists and I suspect that a great many cyclists are easy enough to offend.
As I say, I have no objection to those who cycle along at the kind of speed that was okay for the past hundred years. I am among their number myself sometimes.
It’s the wasps that get me – but don’t worry lads, I’ll still risk life and limb to keep you alive.
Go to http://bit.ly/menonbikes to read the webmd article.
Padraig O'Morain's poetry collection, The Blue Guitar, will be launched at the Irish Writers' Centre in Parnell Square, Dublin, next Friday at 7pm.
Column readers and men on bikes welcome.