OPINION
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OPINION
Zoe Williams What’s wrong with wearing a skirt and high heels for cycling? It’s got to be better than Lycra...
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ometimes, when you’re cycling along in a skirt, you get a funny look from a guy wearing trousers, a look which says: “I bet you wish you were wearing something sensible now, don’t you, love? I bet you wish you weren’t wearing that silly item that doesn’t even divide into two separate legs?” All men, I put it to you, are under the impression that there is something inherently stupid about skirts. They can just about manage the idea that we might want to wear them anyway, but try to undertake any activity in a skirt — bricklaying, or running, or cycling — and they revert to their factory setting. That skirts are stupid. One day, I am going to chase the bestower of this look down the road and say: “Mate, when you see tennis players, do you notice that they sometimes wear skirts? And that’s at the level of international sport, while I, conversely, am just pootling along Millbank, in so little of a rush that I haven’t decided which bridge to take. Why Lycra’s so unnecessary But until that day, I will just share my thoughts on cycle-wear generally: skirts, since you ask, are much more practical than trousers, especially short skirts, because they won’t get caught in your chain and lorry drivers will sometimes try not to kill you, so long as they haven’t seen your face. Lycra is really not necessary unless you have to get to France in 40 minutes, or you have some amazingly good pectorals that you want to show to strangers. My brother-in-law has Lycra items so obscure that you couldn’t, to look at them, tell which body part they’re supposed to go on. The only one that I will concede is of any use is a little under-helmet cap: he went away in summer without it, and came back with his head striped with tan, like a badger. It was one of the best things that happened to me all season, and I wasn’t alone in this
enjoyment. When he went to a meeting at work, they said “can we just take five minutes to discuss what’s happened to Will’s head?” So anyway, the Lycra cap is handy, but only if you’re bald. The rest of that is all garbage. Which brings us to cleats. I finally got up the courage to get a proper pair of pedals and it turns out you don’t need courage at all. And all those people who say “you’ll fall off a couple of times, most likely at traffic lights, let’s hope not under a lorry”, they were lying. God knows why. Some people just like to make life sound much harder than it is. But because my main thought was for my own personal safety, I didn’t think for a second about what the shoes looked like. I just got the first black Specialized numbers I could fit on my feet, as if I didn’t have a choice, as if I were a transvestite trying to fit into Jimmy Choos. Since then, everywhere I go I see ones that are nicer: white shiny ones, ones with flames up the sides, ones that are suede. Normally, it wouldn’t matter because you’d wait for them to wear out and buy some more, but these are going to last 20 years. They never touch the ground. They’ll probably survive a nuclear blast. High heels or Converse? Other items on the fashion cycling agenda: just as skirts are actually easier to cycle in than trousers — and the only reason people don’t realise that is because we have still, so far, failed to smash the patriarchy — so high heels are easier to cycle in than a bog standard trainer like a Converse. Anything that makes you concentrate is a good thing. My friend said, by that rationale, I should cycle with razor blades in my mouth, and even though that makes him the smart-arse, I feel moved to point out that he has had horrific accidents, one of which included breaking his forearm, while I have never had an accident unless
I’ve been drunk. I have got an increasingly high tolerance for ‘politician cycling’: those blokes, although the condition can be unisex, who go along with one trouser leg tucked into a sock and a bowler hat
"My brother-in-law went away without his underhelmet cap and came back with his head striped with tan, like a badger" on, as if they wish always to be ready to go to an urgent meeting in the Victorian times. Saying that, I do like the way couriers dress as though they might be asked to step in when someone drops out of the Tour de France. It’s so optimistic. I like it all, in other words. Anything you might reasonably wear on a bike, I think it looks cool. Even if it’s not reasonable to wear it anywhere, even if it’s a pair of plus-fours, I’m still right behind you. If only everybody could be more like me. Zoe Williams is a freelance journalist and columnist who contributes regularly to publications including The Guardian and New Statesman
Oct/Nov 2011 London Cyclist 17
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21/09/2011 00:51