Leg shaving

Skunk <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I'm not a cycle sports spectator nor anything like a
competition cyclist so I just don't know why some cyclists
shave their legs. I have heard stories about aerodynamics,
the massage oil people uses rips hairs from the legs and
that's a lot more painful than shaving, but I don't know
if any of these reasons are right. Does anyone know the
definitive answer.

Vanity.

--
Dave...

Simonb <[email hidden]> wrote:
: marc wrote:

:> 'cos that's what cyclists do and your not a real cyclist
:> unless you do! What more reason is needed?

: Replace 'cyclists' with 'racers' and you've got a point.

What? There's a difference?

--
Arthur Clune clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a
philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

Simon Brooke said:

It's all these Frenchies and Eytalians. They all shave
their legs and wear perfume and carry handbags, and some
misguided pansies in British cycling think they have to
immitate this.

Xenophobe and homophobe, are you?
--
Michael MacClancy Random putdown - "A modest little person,
with much to be modest about."- Winston Churchill
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk www.macclancy.co.uk

Doki said:

Skunk wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not a cycle sports spectator nor anything like a
competition cyclist so I just don't know why some
cyclists shave their legs. I have heard stories about
aerodynamics, the massage oil people uses rips hairs from
the legs and that's a lot more painful than shaving, but
I don't know if any of these reasons are right. Does
anyone know the definitive answer.

Quoted message said:

I seem to remember seeing a table figures for the
differences in aerodynamic drag from different things, leg
shaving, tight vs flappy jersey, hat / bald head vs hair,
beard vs clean shaven. All these things do make a slight
difference. Not that I'd shave my legs, and if I ever had
to, I'd write "shaven under duress" all over my legs in
marker pen...

I'd like to see how they got the figures. My guess it would
be by making "simplifying assumptions". The problem is that
aerodynamic drag is largely due to vortice formation, and
the right amount of hair in the right places can actually
reduce that, i.e., reduce aerodynamic drag. There's about as
much scientific basis to shaving for speed as there is for
helmets saving cyclist's lives.

Don't forget the reason we had to invent science: sometimes
common sense doesn't work.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
["]http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Michael MacClancy <[email hidden]> wrote:

: Xenophobe and homophobe, are you?

I think you missed the humour there...

--
Arthur Clune clune.orgclune.orgOpen ↗ "Technolibertarians make a
philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

Arthur Clune said:

Michael MacClancy <[email hidden]> wrote:

: Xenophobe and homophobe, are you?

I think you missed the humour there...

I think you missed mine, too.....
--
Michael MacClancy Random putdown - "His mother should have
thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk www.macclancy.co.uk

davek said:

I read something recently (was it here?) about swimmers
shaving off all body hair up to and including their
eyebrows for aerodynamic* advantage only for some
scientist to discover that eyebrow hairs actually help to
*reduce* drag in the water - a bit like an otter's fur.

"I read somewhere that" swimmers will shave shortly before a
race, because the resultant stinging when they hit the water
will make them go faster.

No, I've no idea if this is true.

-dan

--
"please make sure that the person is your friend before
you confirm"

davek said:

I read something recently (was it here?) about swimmers
shaving off all body hair up to and including their
eyebrows for aerodynamic* advantage only for some
scientist to discover that eyebrow hairs actually help to
*reduce* drag in the water - a bit like an otter's fur.

"I read somewhere that" swimmers will shave shortly before a
race, because the resultant stinging when they hit the water
will make them go faster.

No, I've no idea if this is true.

-dan

--
"please make sure that the person is your friend before
you confirm"

in message <[email hidden]>, Michael

MacClancy (') said:

Simon Brooke said:

It's all these Frenchies and Eytalians. They all shave
their legs and wear perfume and carry handbags, and some
misguided pansies in British cycling think they have to
immitate this.

Xenophobe and homophobe, are you?

Now don't 'ee be a-callin oi all those larng high-falutin
names, sithee, moi lad. That's nart p'lite, that's nart.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke)
jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗ ,/| _.--''^``-...___.._.,;
/, \'. _-' ,--,,,--''' { \ `_-'' ' / `;;' ; ; ; ._..--''
._,,, _..' .;.' (,_....----''' (,..--''

in message <[email hidden]>, Michael

MacClancy (') said:

Simon Brooke said:

It's all these Frenchies and Eytalians. They all shave
their legs and wear perfume and carry handbags, and some
misguided pansies in British cycling think they have to
immitate this.

Xenophobe and homophobe, are you?

Now don't 'ee be a-callin oi all those larng high-falutin
names, sithee, moi lad. That's nart p'lite, that's nart.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke)
jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗ ,/| _.--''^``-...___.._.,;
/, \'. _-' ,--,,,--''' { \ `_-'' ' / `;;' ; ; ; ._..--''
._,,, _..' .;.' (,_....----''' (,..--''

"davek" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I read something recently (was it here?) about swimmers
shaving off all body hair up to and including their
eyebrows for aerodynamic* advantage only for some
scientist to discover that eyebrow hairs actually help to
*reduce* drag in the water - a bit like an otter's fur.

IME swimmers used to remove all body hair because lightly
oiled skin was the best material for cutting through the
water (also explains minimally cut costumes/trunks). Now
they remove all body hair because those sharkskin suits are
incredibly tight and not as smooth on the skin as they are
on the water. Ouch!

Sarennah

Arthur Clune said:

Simonb <[email hidden]> wrote:
: marc wrote:

:> 'cos that's what cyclists do and your not a real
:> cyclist unless you do! What more reason is needed?

: Replace 'cyclists' with 'racers' and you've got a point.

What? There's a difference?

Gosh, you know, having read all this I'm glad I'm a girly
now. My legs are hairless, cycling or not ;-)

I don't have to worry whether it's worth it, or what
others'd think of me if I *did* shave 'em...

--

Velvet

Michael MacClancy said:

Xenophobe

Nasty foreign sounding word.

Tim

Michael MacClancy said:

Xenophobe

Nasty foreign sounding word.

Tim

"Tim Hall" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Michael MacClancy said:

Xenophobe

Nasty foreign sounding word.

Isn't it something to do with not liking Lucy Lawless?

cheers, clive

Velvet <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Gosh, you know, having read all this I'm glad I'm a girly
now. My legs are hairless, cycling or not ;-)

I don't have to worry whether it's worth it, or what
others'd think of me if I *did* shave 'em...

My partner in a recent Duo Normand refused to shave his legs
on the grounds that he's a customs officer chasing (though
almost never catching) smugglers in boats. He wears shorts
on the patrol boat and reckons his life would not be worth
living if he shaved.

--
Dave...

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Pete Biggs

BSkunk said:

I'm not a cycle sports spectator nor anything like a
competition cyclist so I just don't know why some cyclists
shave their legs. I have heard stories about aerodynamics,
the massage oil people uses rips hairs from the legs and
that's a lot more painful than shaving, but I don't know
if any of these reasons are right. Does anyone know the
definitive answer.

Yes, it's because leg hairs get caught in the bottle cage
and front mech. Well, that seems no more silly than the road
rash theory to me. Wouldn't the hair be ripped off along
with the skin? Or if the graze wasn't bad enough to do that
then would there be a problem anyway?

~PB [/B]

Having come off (definition been knocked of by some damn car) on a couple of occasions i can say from experence the following:

-shaved legs are alot easier to clean at the time and thus reduceds the risk of infection.
-easier to deal with when it comes to bandages, plaster, etc. Although your your leg hairs grow back quicker then the wounds heal.
-Wounds take longer to heal when i had not shaved my legs, and i have no idea why. 😕
-It is great fun to play with the minds of your non-cycling friends and coworks minds about shaving or waxing, if your male.
-My wife likes them this way. 😄

Quoted message said:

I'm not a cycle sports spectator nor anything like a
competition cyclist so I just don't know why some cyclists
shave their legs.

1. It looks good. Self-reward for all that effort.

2. If you do come off, hair makes cleaning a wound quite a
bit harder and consequently more painful than it would
otherwise be. I speak from one experience, where I did
the typical going-slowly-fall-off-to-one- side-and-scrape-
knee trick. The patch of torn skin was a bit messy -
blood, grit, hair. I cleaned it with salvon patches,
which I always take with me. If the hair had been absent,
it would have been much easier.

Note plasters never stick - too much liquid around, sweat.
Even if you dry the wound, it becomes slick rapidly, since
you're still sweating; the plaster just falls off.

--
Callas

Quoted message said:

I agree it is not the best look to have when you are
walking around the uni campus in shorts with no hair on
your legs!!

Speak for yourself. I've got legs like tree trunks and I
think it looks great 🙂

--
Callas

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm not a cycle sports spectator nor anything like a
competition cyclist so I just don't know why some
cyclists shave their legs.

1. It looks good. Self-reward for all that effort.

2. If you do come off, hair makes cleaning a wound quite a
bit harder and consequently more painful than it would
otherwise be. I speak from one experience, where I did
the typical going-slowly-fall-off-to-one- side-and-scrape-
knee trick. The patch of torn skin was a bit messy -
blood, grit, hair. I cleaned it with salvon patches,
which I always take with me. If the hair had been
absent, it would have been much easier.

3. Preference. I think you get used to being shaved, because
it feels nice. Once you've done it for a short while, you
come to prefer being shaved because it's comfortable and
your perception of hair changes; you begin to perceive
leg hair as ugly.

--
Callas