Ah, cycling! If there’s one sport that stands out for its level of tackiness from the outside, cycling might just take the prize…

By Jean-François Tatard – Photos: Pixnio.com, @le vélo de Ghislain Lambert, publicdomainpictures.net / DR

If you haven’t escaped the fashion for an earring à la Gert-Jan Theunisse or Ronan Pensec, or the laurel wreath tattooed around your thigh at just the right height under your bib shorts, or the Banesto fleece jacket for picking up your Alltricks package at the post office – okay, I’m exaggerating, a Gabba is fine – if you too, at some point, dared to have hair streaks deliberately yellowed by hydrogen peroxide, if you went to the jewelry store with your girlfriend at the time to get a bike pendant on a thick silver chain or, even better, gold-plated, and if today, you have no other socks in your closet than your fake Rapha bought on Aliexpress and you wear them in all circumstances, even under a suit for your cousin’s wedding; If in summer, lounging on a beach chair, you keep your fluorescent pink 100% glasses à la Peter Sagan, or at a pinch MVDP’s Oakley Sutro, it’s not that you’re a bikenerd, it’s just that you fit the perfect caricature of a cyclist…

Alright, I’m warning you, this column belongs in the humor category.

=> SEE ALSO: Are you a Bikenerd?

A Microcosm with its Own Language

In the cycling family, we never realize how tacky we are. In fact, to realize it, you have to leave it, except that generally, you never really leave it… We spend time there, so to speak, all our free time, our evenings, our weekends. Our holidays. Our life. We meet our friends there. We build our network there. Sometimes we even get married there. And we even work there. In short, we would do anything to spend as much time as possible there. In no other sport have we ever lived so much in such a small microcosm. A kind of abbreviated world in which we have even built our own vocabulary: from “mettre tout à droite” (put everything to the right) to “baisser d’une dent” (drop a gear) or “flinguer comme un patapon” (attack like a madman), “se faire bordurer” (get dropped in an echelon), “caresser les pédales” (pedal smoothly), “être collé” (be stuck), “se mettre à la planche” (go all out), “être dans la mafia” (be in the mafia), “fumer le cigare” (smoke the cigar), “filocher” (follow closely), “descendre la plaque” (drop the chainring), “lancer un pétard mouillé” (launch a damp squib), “rester en croustille” (stay in the crunch), “sucer la roue” (suck the wheel), “mettre le paquetard en rang d’oignon” (line up the pack in a row), “tricoter” (spin the pedals), passing through “manger de la luzerne” (eat alfalfa), “becqueter de l’aile” (eat the wing) or “bouffer de la laine” (eat wool), “enfoncer des clous” (drive nails), “avoir de la laine sous les ongles” (have wool under the nails), “prendre l’autobus” (take the bus), etc. In short, the language of the perfect cyclard offers a panoply of expressions that only we truly understand. But yet, just like the clothing style that only has style in context, it is the mastery of this mysterious dialect that allows you to say – but only within this ecosystem – that you are not tacky… Because outside of this very closed social group, it is us they are laughing at.

Tackiness 2.0

You know that stereotypical guy? With his bulging belly, in his Castelli jersey three sizes too small for him, like a well-laced veal paupiette, his pack of Velosophe beers under his arm and his Skoda bucket hat perfectly adjusted between his ears. In short, what could have been a Cabu drawing representing the average Frenchman. But the tacky guy isn’t necessarily (only) him. The tacky guy is especially the type who spouts truths, his truths, he doesn’t think at all, he is carried by clichés, by “common sense” in quotes, by certainties from which he will never budge. He doesn’t read first. Or only the headlines. With him, it’s the death of paper.

The tacky guy is especially the type who spouts truths, his truths, he doesn’t think at all, he is carried by clichés, by “common sense” in quotes, by certainties from which he will never budge.

The tacky guy is indeed a cliché of the average man, uncultured and rather vulgar, but also self-satisfied. The tacky guy accepts himself as he is, but he is not necessarily aware of being tacky. He loves bar-top conversations. If he wasn’t commenting on Alaphilippe’s possible departure from Deceuninck or Kasper Asgreen’s show of strength at the Tour of Flanders, he’d be playing a PMU, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. Today, the term has taken on a broader meaning, and ultimately that suits us because that way, we no longer really know who he is. And yes, the modern tacky guy is no longer slumped on the sofa glued to the TV. The modern tacky guy has burst into the internet age. The image of the tacky guy dulling himself in front of the TV is outdated, the modern tacky guy uses Facebook to commune with other tacky guys. A big fan of photo montages and catchy slogans, he checks nothing but shares everything. So, we play the tacky guy and we make pelotons of tacky guys. Such is the meaning of our life…

A Tacky Guy Who Owns It

I was, or still am, I’m not sure, a tacky guy! And I don’t know when I’ll be cured. Because now that I’ve discovered that the tacky guy is an unwitting poet, I think being a wild dog suits me just fine. You know, that same guy who preaches “We start with 25, we finish with 25“. But deep down, he whispers to himself: “We start with 25, at best we finish with 3“… This kind of cycling prowess that makes you believe you’re a hero because you’re riding at 40 km/h on the way back to the Patte d’Oie in Herblay. But the tacky guy also distinguishes himself by much stranger behavior. You have to know how to put in one more gear on the last raidard before entering old Cergy. To take advantage of what seems to be a moment of distress in others or to know how to interpret “you have one bar left” to seize the opportunity to be definitively the most respected in the peloton. That’s the code of honor of the tacky cyclist. What’s paradoxical is that it’s still within his cycling family that the tacky guy feels best. Probably because that’s where he can express himself best…

Alright, 4 last pieces of advice for the road:

1. Let’s accept ourselves as we are. It’s okay to be tacky.
2. Let’s respect others! We’re not the only tacky ones.
3. Let’s cultivate mutual aid and remain supportive.
4. Don’t throw away your Gewiss or Gerolsteiner jersey. Like everything that’s out of fashion, it will come back into style one day.

=> SEE ALSO: All our CQFD articles