Smedium: New Clothes Sizes for Cyclists

I Propose A New Size

“Where’s your ass?” my wife asked.  “I know you have a butt, a nice butt, but I don’t see it.”  Apparently my caboose got derailed in these 33W X 33L jeans I’m wearing.  I think I pulled them off the hanger from the pre-vegan section of my closet.  Maybe I’ve slightly neglected my personal sex appeal over 14 years of marriage, but my wife deserves to see my fine cyclocross sculpted rear bumper.  Two days later, the golden e-mail hit her smartphone, “Tonight only, 40% off at Banana Republic.”  It was mutually decided, skip the easy Monday night at the gym for an hour or two doing dressing room gymnastics.  Oh boy, it got gymnastical.

With four plaid collared button down dress shirts, a baby blue merino wool sweater and a long-john-esque “waffled” long sleeve tee, Joe or Nick or Kevin or one of the Jonas Brothers working at Banana Republic showed me to my stall.  As far as the button downs, I’m upset to report I’m a size Smedium.  From the last time I bought nice shirts and today, I’ve probably lost 12-15 pounds.  Staring in the mirror with the medium, I could gather 5-6 inches of fabric around my middle.  Dammit, it took me months of intervals and hummus to earn this waist.  I want to show it off.  So with the hesitation of a former large, I slipped on the small. 

Hmm...not too poochy in the small.

I could sort of see the last uncyclocrossed remnants of my pooch showing.  I’m not 6-pack sculpted, more of a two-pack.  Like the woman in the dressing room next to me, I went back and forth between the two sizes: small, medium, small, medium.  “Welcome to my world,” I could hear my wife saying.  I spent so much time in that dressing room with so many items I wondered if the Jonas Brother was getting suspicious of shoplifting.  I opted for the small, yet still puzzled.  Why do pants come in so many different sizes stores practically need a card catalog to organize the shelves by size and style, yet shirts at Banana Republic have only four sizes for men, small through XL?  So there’s my case for Smedium (SM) and Mediarge (ML).

As for the jeans, I walked into the store saggin’ no ass pre-vegan 33 squares, 33W x 33L.  Going sub-33 was new territory for me, so I sent Jonas ahead, armed with 32’s, 31’s and even a pair of 30’s.  The 32’s were clown pants.  I hooked the waist with my thumbs.  I could probably shove 3 summer sausages down the front of them.  The butt looked like denim drapery.  So I got extreme.  Wiggling and shimmying, I had to get gymnastical to get the 30’s on.  Beyond surprised, they buttoned right up and fell flat on the hips.  However, the thighs were so tight they could double as muscle recovery wear.  It’s the cyclists curse. 

Those Quads Need A Belt

You ride your butt off, try to eat healthy and lose weight, but your newly acquired Andre’ Greipel in training quads and hammies get so big you need to opt for the larger size.  I walked out of the dressing room without pants, new pants, and this thought.  I propose adding three dimensional sizing to men's pants.  The “T” could mean thigh or tree-trunk, or for skinny people, tent pole.  Instead of 31W x 33L, for those with 20 inch hams like me, we’d have 30W x 33L x 21T.  One way or another, my wife deserves to oogle my ass.

CX Bike Fit: Don’t Make Me Get All Norm Abram on You

My New Leaf Spring

A cross bike saddle is like a bean bag chair without the X-box.  No.  It’s more like a crossbow with the rails as the bow and the sit surface as the string.  Hmm.  Not quite.  A CX bike saddle is identical to a leaf spring on a 1978 Toyota Land Cruiser in Nairobi.  Yeah, and your remounting tookus is the rusty two ton truck pounding on it through a Serengeti Safari.  Think about that mid-race and all the pain will go away for at least a lap.

I skipped the first cross races, not intentionally.  I was on vacation in Park City, Utah.  While I was looking at the Uinta Mountains beyond Round Valley between my toes from our Canyon condo’s hot tub recovering from a 5 hour epic on the Mid Mountain Trail, I picked up my waterproof pen and paper and scribbled a short list of things I needed to do to my CX bike before the OVCX racing series kicks off this weekend in Kentucky.  Okay, so the Sharpie and paper weren’t so waterproof.  I might’ve missed something.

The Old White Saddle In Question

Oh yeah.  Mitch, my teammate and owner of BioWheels Bike Shop pointed out that my saddle looked too low at the cyclocross time trial the other day.  Like any crosser confronted by someone questioning my bike fit, I told him to f-off.  I’ve been doing this for 10 years.  A CX fit savant, I keep a tape measure and level in my middle jersey pocket every September.  The height from pedal centerline to the top of my saddle was perfect because I measured it 32 times…definitely 32 times.  Don’t make me break out the aged cryptic postie note with my measurements on it and get all Norm Abram on your ass.  For those that eschew PBS, Norm Abram is host of The New Yankee Workshop and can build an exquisite armoire quicker than you can make oatmeal.

Still Mitch is no dufus.  The fit question niggled at me.  How could my saddle be set up perfect yet appear too low?  Great googlie mooglie!  I got it!  Even though identical to the saddles on my road and mountain bikes, the white Fizik Aliante on my CX bike was purchased used about 4 years ago.  I suspected it had lost its loft.  Sure enough, if you look closely at the pictures, the old white saddle appears to have a little more curve through the top when compared to the new blue one.  While still measuring 92.7 cm from my pedal axle, the top of the saddle would sink down an extra centimeter when I sat on it.  Ah ha!  I emailed Mitch and took back every curse word.

Two Screws Were 3mm from Piercing My Taint

For the ultimate proof, you can see how the saddle has lost its leaf-spring capability by looking at the underside.  Those two holes were caused by the saddle coming in contact with the ends of the seatpost bolts.  Not the way you want to get a prostate exam.  The moral of the story is three fold: never buy a used saddle, measure your fit 32 times...definitely, and no matter how much it hurts your ego, always trust the advice of the bike-fit pro at your local shop.