If this pic is anything to go by, £80m footballer Cristiano Ronaldo is a real cyclist: no helmet, no lycra, no cleats, in fact not very much at all. But he wouldn't be suited to road cycling, as he'd keep diving, or claiming that someone had elbowed him in the face. Mind, if he's ever in the same room as Sir Alex again, he might be right.
The URL of the page from which this image was shamelessly nicked - no, it wasn't me who snapped him and that isn't the Walworth Road - ends 'cristiano-ronaldo-naked-picture.html', which is a trifle ambitious. But it does remind me that the World Naked Bike Ride is taking place in the UK this weekend, with London's display of painted torsos and topologically transformed genitalia starting from Wellington Arch tomorrow at 3pm.
Now, when I went a year or two ago, the WNBR made me feel a bit queasy. There's something unsettling about the proximity of all that exposed Knackwurst to so much whirring machinery. As is the kneading effect of a bicycle saddle and the pedalling motion of inner thighs on the male form. Put Michelangelo's David on a bike, and see what effect that has on his perfect artistic balance. And some of the spectators had clearly come to appreciate the spectacle in the same way that Jacqui Smith's husband appreciates film.
So *shudder* I don't think I'll be there. In any case, while I'm all for celebration of the quirky, amusing and offbeat, I do worry that the WNBR propagates the idea that cycling is for naive weirdos who are to be patronised with a TV-report smile for a day, and then scorned at for the rest of the year from inside a Ford Focus at the lights.
And I doubt Cristiano will be there. After all, he'll be earning £250,000 a week. Where would he put it?
"Where would he put it"? He'd need a cargo-bike...and a sturdy lock.
ReplyDeleteNice pic of him, better than being in that dangerous Ferrari and crashing into things. You look hotter on a bike Ronaldo.
ReplyDeleteVelochick
Freewheeler, responding to this post, writes (http://crapwalthamforest.blogspot.com/2009/06/image-of-cycling.html):
ReplyDelete"Of course, it might be thought that anyone who cycles in London, even fully-clothed, by definition suffers from a mild personality disorder, and is a thrill-seeking risk taker with underlying sado-masochistic tendencies."
...Damn! He's right again!