Lessons in Lycra

With threats against her bike-riding husband rife, Kate Birch gets to grips with Britain’s anti-cycling culture

My husband has taken up cycling.

It’s what you do in Britain when you’re a man and you get to a certain age. In this latest incarnation of the mid-life crisis, men swap their baggy surf shorts for tight Lycra, trade in their flashy Ferraris for bespoke bikes and replace their pinstripes with neon.

Yes, my husband is a mamil (middleaged man in Lycra), a word often used in a disdainful tone of voice to broadcast the belief that men of a certain age and size should have enough decorum to refrain from wearing spandex in public.

He doesn’t mind; he’s been called worse… a Lycra lout, a knee-jerking nerd, a cockroach on wheels, and other less-repeatable names. Thankfully, he’s neither bothered, nor alone.

Spawned by last year’s capture of eight British Olympic gold cycling medals and back-to-back wins in the Tour de France, biking in Britain is booming (more than 6.8 million people cycle at least once a month, according to British Cycling) and many of those taking to two wheels are mamils.

My husband’s born-again bicycle awakening has been made easier by the fact that mamilism is spreading as quickly as motorists’ middles.

While many may mock the mamil – I know I do – the bottom line (and it’s rather a tight one) is that mamils are the clever ones, cutting both their calories and for the ones who commute, the country’s carbon emissions.

I know I should be grateful that rather than having a love affair with a Porsche and a pretty young thing, my middle-aged man is instead having one with spandex and a bicycle. But I’m not. I’m worried.

I’m not just worried because hubby might be spotted in public puffing and panting in tight Lycra and a not-even-fashionable-in-the-80s fluorescent vest, but because there’s a war being waged on wheels and it’s not pretty. You see, my husband returned from last week’s bike ride with a gashed knee, having been forced into a ditch by a lorry, the driver of which then proceeded to shout profanities at him.

“I feel more hated than a terrorist,” remarked my husband, who has in the past month been knocked off his bike twice, had a half-full coffee cup thrown at him and been called every nasty name under the sun.

According to a recent survey by cycling charity CTC’s legal advisors Slater & Gordon, 50 per cent of British cyclists have experienced verbal abuse, 25 per cent subjected to road rage, one in 15 had objects thrown at them and one in 20 pushed off their bikes.

Antisocial behaviour against bikers is so prolific that many now wear a

Why do middle-aged men trying to get fit trigger such deep-seated rage?

helmet camera to record it.

In cyberspace too, the anti-cyclist chorus is loud and clear – there are dedicated slate-the-cyclist internet sites; prolific and murderous rants against mamils on Twitter; and continual anti-cyclist commentary courtesy of the ‘popular’ press.

But while all cyclists get a bit of a hard time for not having to pay road tax or not abiding by the rules, it’s the mamils who seem to be Public Enemy Number One, even attracting scorn from fellow riders – commuter cyclists say mamils increase congestion without cutting carbon, while the cycling elite dislike the way mamils travel in packs.

I concede it’s a tad frustrating being held up by a gang of 15 pear-shaped peddlers on a country road, not being able to overtake (at least in Dubai, cyclists finish by 8am, when they all gather for breakfast, before drivers are even out of bed), but that doesn’t make mamils criminals.

So why then do middle-aged men trying to get fit trigger such deep-seated rage? Why are they so offensive to so many people?

“They look ridiculous,” says a member of the anti-mamil tribe – a petrolguzzling horsepower junkie of a man, who seems to have views on cycling to the extreme right of Jeremy Clarkson – who admits he is offended by “old men who wax their legs, squeeze their bulges into Lycra and spend ridiculous amounts of money on bike gadgets”.

Ouch. OK, so my husband may not be blessed with the thighs of Roger Federer and, yes, this is probably his final grasp at youth, but that’s not an excuse for scorn.

Seeing him shave his legs is a little unnerving (he assures me it’s the trademark of a serious cyclist) while splashing out £800 (Dh4,750) on a pair of lighter-than-paper cycling shoes grates, but it doesn’t give me or anyone else the right to push him into a ditch.

It turns out the real reason, according to a survey by the US Department of Transportation, so many people despise mamils is jealousy. They’re jealous because unlike drivers, mamils don’t get stuck in traffic and will whizz past them at some point, all while getting fitter, healthier and saving money on fuel and parking.

It’s true. Not only am I (and probably Mr Clarkson, come to that) jealous that hubby sports smoother legs and a more toned tummy than I do, but also that he doesn’t care if he looks ridiculous.

Because after a month of road biking, having shed several inches of middle-aged spread and feeling happier and healthier than he has in a long time, my mamil is definitely having the last (Lycra-clad) laugh.