MAMILs deter would-be cyclists says adventurer Mark Beaumont

If he's not been misquoted then he's way off the mark here. Wearing lycra is not an entry to a race, it's being comfortable. Being in a club is not wanting to be a pro-racer, it's sharing a passion for cycling and safety in numbers. Being in a club (and wearing lycra) is also about racing, but if my club is typical I'd say around 1/4 - 1/3 of members actually race regularly? The rest want to keep fit, get better at cycling and spend huge amounts on carbon fibre!

If people are intimidated then that's just another reason to stay in bed on Sunday morning. Being a MAMIL, or whatever the younger version is, is one of the best things happening in the UK right now. This revolution is soooo positive! No need to preach to the converted readers here, but I would hope someone in his position would be pushing for the positive aspects of cycling, MAMILs and cycling clubs?

To slightly misquote Sir Chris of Boardman, MAMILS are not even in top 10 of things that keep people from cycling [probably].

Perhaps Mr B would be better advised to pontificate on that, if indeed he was pontificating.

I can see where he's coming from. looking from outside the dominant image of cycling must be of grimacing blokes on expensive bikes because that is what I see on my rides and that is what is on the cover of Cycling Weekly every week. There's nothing wrong with being that if that's what you are but collectively it doesn't present an inviting face to the potential new cyclist. You only need to read the comments on this website under for example a kit review article or anything which even tangentially touches on helmets to see how judgemental a lot of cyclists are about each other and clubs often exist for a fairly narrow demographic. I don't feel particularly part of the 'in crowd' myself so can well understand how newcomers might be put off. If someone is trying to show there are many other ways to enjoy cycling then that must be a good thing.

Mark, unless you were misquoted, this is a load of rubbish. If you really do think this way then I can imagine your thoughts about us PILOCs then (Pensioners In Lycra On Cycles).

So.. a middle aged guy wearing lycra is telling me that I (a middle aged guy wearing lycra) is putting people off cycling??

Really?

I think it may be people in cars who may be putting of cycling more than my age or dress sense!

Before my recent accident I (fast) commuted to work 10 miles each way on a cross-bike and never felt the need to wear lycra or any other tight-fitting clothing or indeed anything cycling-specific other than MTB shoes (no cleats) and a helmet. For me, general purpose outdoor wear made from technical fabrics to wick away sweat etc makes more sense - I found cycle shorts to be lacking in deep pockets and totally unsuited for my purpose and instead invested in far superior Craghopper shorts made for hiking.

Surely better too be a MAMIL than someone who wears their favourite football kit and does nothing more than watch sports on TV.

Any label that applies to being activity can only be a good one.

That ES article is a massive load of retarded bollocks. End of.

90% of 'weekend warriors' have probably completed their saturday/sunday morning ride in the countryside before the average would be 'person on a bike' has ventured out.

POINT 1: THEY WOULDN'T EVER SEE THESE 'MAMILS'

The fact that 99% of would be 'person on a bike' type people are city dwellers anyway means even if they were up, they wouldn't see the mamils anyway (even the city clubs venture outside the city)

POINT 2: SEE POINT 1.

This fella is talking utter rubbish...though of course the evening standard is responsible for putting this (probably small) part of the interview as the headline and making a big fuss of it.

What the f**k is wrong with those of us cycling to get fit & lose weight wearing clothes specifically designed for doing so?

I think he's made the point badly or the newspaper has made it look so. There's a whole article that could be written about this but CanAmSteve has made the point pretty well above. If we want cycling to become more than just a sport in the UK, there needs to be a culture change and racing kits and racing bikes won't achieve it.

We are so up our own arses in this country we simply won't look to the continent and accept so many countries have got this right and are making it better while we move ever backwards.

I've just got back from Italy and in Florence and Milan there were thousands of people pottering about perfectly happily on crappy shopping bikes on good infrastructure in normal clothes. I didn't see one single person on a racing bike, wearing hi viz or a helmet. And these aren't cities renowned for leading the way in this area but they were a hundred times better than our most advanced city.

Proud to be a MAMIL, it isn't an insult and we shouldn't allow it to become one.

Guess what, some blokes are competive and like to push themselves. It's perfectly normal bloke behaviour.

The Man has a point, albeit a poorly made one. Let's Address MAMIL.

Middle Aged - Age does matter, especially when getting kids interested in a sport. No teenager joining any club whose members are your friends dads.

Men - There are team sports like football, there are individual sports like running, there are sporty social clubs like hiking. Cycling and it's clubs try to include all 3 plus a small bit of pedestrian road safety campaigning on the side. If a local mens sunday league team also had a small section that went on hikes I doubt it would get many women.

The fact that there are plenty of safe places to run to hardly any to cycle explains why you get so many mums meeting up to run but hardly any cycling.

In Lycra - Any sport that requires a lot of investment to take part in will find it harder to get new people in. Especially if that equipment involves embarrassing clothing. Will a teenage boy go on bike ride with friends and have a bit of a race? Yes. Is He going to enter a race where everybody has a road bike a wears lycra? No, It's too big a jump.

A Idea is to make it easier to race a bike, why not close a town square for a day and have under 14 baggy clothes only bike races where you have to sell your bike for £200 if offered. You could convince quite a few teenagers to give that a go.

The problem is that in the UK, cycling seems to be only a sport - whereas in the rest of Europe, it's a means of transportation, used by adults and children as a normal part of their daily routine. Yes, you see people in Spain and Italy and Germany wearing Lycra - mostly older retired men out for a Saturday ride with the boys. But they are at best 10% of the cyclists you see in a day.

90% of the cyclists you see are just normal people - workers, students, shoppers - out on their bike to get from Point A to Point B. Outside London in the UK, you're lucky to see 10% of people on cycles dressed normally - they all seem to be dressed for the TdeF regardless of what they are doing.

And this will be a huge problem in the UK if we fail to develop the infrastructure (and culture) for "normal" bike riding. Soon, the fad for "sporty" bike riding will fade and many bike shops - whose entire business model is built on selling people the latest and greatest new bike and ridiculously expensive cycle-specific clothing - will be bust.

I was in a big German bike shop a while ago - all they sell is bicycles - store as big as an entire Halfords (but all bikes). Their stock was 70% city bikes (mudguards, dynamo lights, reflectors, hub gearing - great practical bikes for everyday use). Then about 20% mountain bikes - big names with MTB-specific clothing and accessories.

And finally - 10% road bikes and related. Why? Because only about 10% of normal German cyclists care about "racing". They would feel foolish dressing up like a TdeF racer to ride to school or uni or work.

And that's the future here - except I fear we may only have less than the 10% - we don't do "normal" very well.

MAMIL's are not the problem, "Cyclists" are!

Let me explain. I get really upset when someone describes me as a cyclist and a certain friend used to try and wind me up over this until...

He tweeked his back at work one week and so rather than ride his road bike he decided to join me on his hybrid. He knew I wouldn't object unlike his other riding friends.
As he lives on the north side of the Thames he would meet me at the Southern end of the Woolwich Foot Tunnel.
As he entered the North Stairwell he saw a fellow cyclist and said "Good Morning" and was surprised to get no response. He looked away and out of the corner of his eye he saw the cyclist shake his head with a look of disdain.
It took over two hours of cycling before I got out of him what was bothering him.

He now says he is not a cyclist but is, like me, just someone who likes to ride a bike. He seems much happier.

I've met the guy twice, didn't really like him.

Didn't really know why. Until now.

The only people MAMILS put off are would be MAMILS, not commuters or leisure riders.

Keep riding on your own in the middle of nowhere MB, you will never be Hoy, R Millar or Obree.

What a load of old cobblers

What about OAPILs (old age pensioners in lycra)? Where Beaumont is concerned, is that the ultimate deterrent?

I thought it was the speeding nut-job drivers passing too close and crappy, pot-holed roads we have to contend with that is the biggest deterrent.

When will Mark Beaumont consider himself to be middle-aged? At what age will he stop wearing lycra?

The guy has lost his sense-of-perspective.

However demoralising it is to see the lycra-clad ones going up hills faster than I go down them, its more the fear of violent death from motorised vehicles driven [edit -mostly] by non-lcyra-clad people that puts me off.

(Soon to be) middle-aged man in lycra says that middle-aged men in lycra deter would-be cyclists. That is unless road.cc have misinterpreted that bastion of quality journalism, the London Evening Standard.

Surely a MAMIL is only exactly what the acronym says it is, not some competition-obsessed bore.

If other people think I "take cycling too seriously" and because of that also think that I "think that it is all about competition" just because I wear lycra, then that is, ipso facto, not my bloody problem.

This is from exactly the same script as that "collective responsibility" crap that gets wheeled out with depressing inevitablity every time some nutjob runs a cyclist off the road.

No, he does have a point.

In a curious coincidence of timing I was just talking this morning to the woman across the road about an event she entered where she was definitely disconcerted by the lycra warriors in evidence at the start. After giving a disconcertingly accurate description of what I look like of a Sunday morning she then related how she spent the first half of her day being passed at speed before meeting up with another ride which had more 'normal' people on it. She was much happier hanging out with that bunch.

So, anecdotally at least he is entirely correct. He doesn't however say it's anyone's fault. But rather than defend your dress sense (and I speak as a paid up member of the Castelli classes) a little empathy for those with a different point of view would't go amiss.

And here was me thinking that people were intimidated by truck whizzing past them.