More Q&A With a Cycling Coach

Dear Cycling Coach,

What is this “glycogen window” I keep hearing my dad talk about? Sounds like basically carte blanche to eat a bunch of sugary snacks just because he rode…

Lydia L, Portland, OR

Dear Lydia,

The glycogen window is legit! No less an authority than the National Institute of Health advises, in this article, “To maximize glycogen resynthesis after exercise, a carbohydrate supplement ...  should be consumed immediately after competition or a training bout.” In other words, you’ll recover from hard exercise better if you have a sweet snack right afterward. (Most articles agree that the window is about 30 minutes.) This doesn’t mean walking around the block justifies a whole package of red vines, though; “walkies” does not equal a “bout.” Also, not all snacks are created equal. I recommend sweetened yogurt, chocolate milk if you’ve got it, or some fruit (apple slices with peanut butter being my favorite). The NIH notes, “The addition of protein to a carbohydrate supplement may also increase the rate of glycogen storage due to the ability of protein and carbohydrate to act synergistically on insulin secretion.”

But you don’t need to take the NIH’s word for it! My own daughter did an elaborate experiment on this for her science project and you can read all about it here.

Dear Cycling Coach,

There’s a guy on my mountain biking team who’s always saying, “I’m gonna do bad in the race,” or, worse, “Oh, I’m not gonna try in the race.” It kinda bums me out and I’m sure he’s not doing himself any favors either. Any advice here?

Wally M, Mill Valley, CA

Dear Wally,

Without knowing your teammate I can only speculate, but I suppose his spoken sentiments are either performative (i.e., downplaying in advance any sense that he tried and failed, to save face), or are the public version of what he tells himself all the time. If I were his coach, I would try to draw him out a bit on that, and encourage him, and remind him how long it takes to get good at this very difficult sport.

If his utterances are indeed an echo of some interior monologue, he should be aware that negative self-talk can be very detrimental to an athlete, even beyond sport. A friend of mine, a licensed psychotherapist and founder of Ceely Sports, an athlete coaching company, discusses self-talk on his blog, here. He describes negative self-talk as “a natural psychological mechanism that all humans have” that tries to “problem-solve by pointing out your (real or imagined) errors and flaws.” He goes on to say, “Think of the inner critic as a linguistic personification of a primal survival mechanism. It’s useful, but tends to overreact and be a bit hyperbolic… The key is to know that your inner critic is just one of many voices, or internal mechanisms, that try to communicate information to you. Here’s the cool thing: you don’t have to believe everything ‘you’ think.” That is, you don’t have to listen to that negativity and let it become a self-fulfilling prophecy; you can take control of your internal narrative. Maybe you can convey this to your teammate, or forward him this post.

For a deeper exploration of this topic, see my post “Self-Talk in Action” here.

Dear Cycling Coach,

In last week’s column you referred to bike clothing as a “costume.” Nobody calls it that! If you’re supposed to be a coach why don’t you call it a “kit” like everybody else?

Lisa H, Charleston, SC

Dear Lisa,

Oh my goodness, you appear to have no idea how contentious the term “kit” can be. It was the topic of a highly animated email thread among my road cycling teammates. In fact, it’s a good thing our debate was confined to the emails (all gazillion of them) instead of a mid-ride discussion, because then it might have escalated into a riot. (Yes, I’m exaggerating.) I ended up getting three blog posts out of this fraught topic (so far) and you can read the final one here.

The short answer is, many feel “kit” is a Euro affectation, like “bidon,” and avoid it for reasons of taste, even though its meaning is plenty clear. I won’t call you out for using it, but I’ll ask you to extend me the same courtesy for “costume,” which I believe is the perfect term since compared to actual pro cyclists, the vast majority of us are posers (or poseurs in affected Euro parlance).

Dear Cycling Coach,

Should I use a bike computer? What are the benefits? Any downside, other than people thinking I’m a fitness dweeb?

Ben F, San Diego, CA

Dear Ben,

Given the prevalence of smart watches, and even smart rings, that can monitor sleep, heart rate, and blood oxygen levels, I doubt anyone will think you’re nerdy for using a bike computer. It might disturb the clean line of your handlebar, but trust me … nobody but you and other bike geeks are looking at that.

Meanwhile, bike computers really are handy, if for no other reason than tracking your mileage. Even a relatively cheap one like this Sigma can sync with your phone (and/or Strava) to serve as an automated training diary. I myself don’t use Strava but can still gamify my workouts by sending a snapshot to a pal, who reciprocates. We have an informal contest: who can beat 5,000 miles for the year, and by how much?

If you do get a bike computer you’ll be in good company. A while back I surveyed my road teammates and some other cyclists I know, and (as detailed here), 87% use a bike computer, and it’s not because they’re hardcore racers. Among those surveyed, 80% don’t follow a strict training program and only 17% (at the time of the survey) still raced regularly. In particular I find the heart rate data interesting. If you do a lot of solo rides, the arguably trivial data are even more welcome.

Dear Cycling Coach,

What’s the best way to deal with poison oak? Are we mountain bikers doomed to suffer that rash or is there a way to escape it?

Jill M, San Francisco, CA

Dear Jill,

Noting that you live in the Bay Area, which doesn’t feature very hot weather, I’ll suggest one really easy hack: wear long sleeves when you can. I almost always ride in leg and arm warmers and never have trouble with poison oak. Beyond that, I have learned that there is a really great way to prevent this rash even after exposure. You scrub your skin with a washcloth (and also soap, with Dawn dish soap being recommended). The washcloth makes all the difference in the world, as explained in this helpful video.

For more on poison oak and cycling, check out this post.

Dear Cycling Coach,

I am a budding young road racer in a dispute with my dad. I like to point my brake levers inward for better aerodynamics but my dad says I shouldn’t, simply on the basis that it looks stupid (or so he says). I say if it’s more aero, it’s worth it. Who’s right?

Megan G, Boston, MA

Dear Megan,

I am presumably of your father’s generation … whom do you honestly expect me to agree with? Look, your dad is right. The part of the lever you rest your hands on (that the rubber hoods cover) should point straight forward. This isn’t just the opinion of your wise father and me, but also the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the governing body of road racing globally. A new UCI regulation actually prohibits inward-pointing levers as detailed here. This is supposedly for safety, but I really think it’s because the sport depends on sponsors, and the UCI grasps that if all dignity is removed from the peloton nobody will want anything to do with the image of cycling. So if your levers look like what’s below, straighten them out, quickfastninahurry.

I recently had a debate about this with a high school rider whom I coach, who (like you) seems to care only about aerodynamics with no regard for proper aesthetics. I compared inward-turned levers to putting ketchup on a hot dog, to which she replied, “What’s wrong with that?” No offense, Megan, but I really worry about your generation.

Dear Cycling Coach,

Last week in this column you mentioned “stealth training.” What exactly is that?

Jack F, Ventura, CA

Dear Jack,

Stealth training is when you could be riding with your pals, but instead you pretend you can’t go and then do a longer and/or harder ride solo, to try to improve your fitness faster. This solo ride is kept secret from your friends (sometimes to the point that you don’t even post it on Strava).

Sometimes mention of stealth training takes the form of a hurled accusation, quite possibly without merit. For example, when a pal declines an offer for a group ride, someone may well say, “Oh, sure you have a schedule conflict. I’ll bet you’re just looking to do some stealth training.”

For more on this topic click here.

Dear Cycling Coach,

What tools, etc. should I bring when I go mountain biking? I’m told that since my tires are tubeless, I should bring bacon strips. Huh? And besides flats, what should I be prepared for?

Suzie L, San Luis Obispo, CA

Dear Suzie,

“Bacon strip” is the nickname for these little tire plugs that you can stick into a hole in your tire, using a special tool. (Don’t worry, they’re actually vegan.) These plugs are helpful when the hole is too big for the sealant to plug up. Best of all, you don’t even need to remove the tire, so they can be really handy in a race. I’m not sure I can really recommend them, though, because I’ve never tried them myself, and I’ve watched seasoned mountain bikers—coaches, even—futz around with them without getting anywhere. Maybe my experience isn’t representative, though … you should ask around. Myself, I always bring a spare tube and just throw that in the tire (even if you were running tubeless before). That’s more foolproof.

Beyond the bacon strips and/or spare tube, you should bring food (energy bar, pop tart, PBJ, fruit) if your ride is much longer than an hour; tire levers; a pump (greener than a CO2 inflator); a patch kit; a multi-tool; one of those spiffy rechargeable taillights, mounted under your saddle; something to use as a tire boot; your phone; a chain tool if you know how to use it; and, last but not least, extra clothing. You never know when the weather will take a turn, and if you crash or have a mechanical you won’t be staying warm by working hard; you’ll be standing around getting cold. I was on a team ride recently and a kid crashed pretty hard. It took me fifteen minutes to patch him up, and since we were above 1,700 feet elevation, the temperature dropped quite a bit, down to the low forties, and a couple kids were freezing their asses off. If it had been a bit colder, and especially if it started raining or the wind picked up, they’d have been at risk of hypothermia.

(As a coach, I carry all kinds of stuff like tubes of various sizes, arm warmers in various sizes, a first aid kit, all kinds of tools, and extra food. More on that topic here.)

Dear Cycling Coach,

Is it true that cyclists have the highest pain threshold of any athlete?

Robert B, West Milford, NJ

Dear Robert,

I’m kind of afraid to answer that, because if I declared, for example, that cyclists were tougher than football players, I might get my ass kicked. But I do have some experience measuring cyclists’ pain thresholds, based on a methodology called the cold-pressor test described in this New Yorker article by Atul Gawande. As Gawande describes, when taking this test ballet dancers demonstrated far higher pain thresholds than nondancers. Several other articles also hold up dancers as the gold standard in pain tolerance. In my own study, all of us cyclists were able to outlast the cold-pressor test, something even the dancers hadn’t managed. You can read all about my experiment here. Suffice to say, even if we’re not the toughest of all athletes, we’re surely in the running.

Dear Cycling Coach,

There’s some disagreement on my high school mountain biking team about what bike is better: full suspension or a hardtail. One of my teammates insists that riding a hardtail will “make you a better rider.” Is this really true, or is she just saying that because it’s the kind of bike she has?

Scott H, Tallahassee, FL

Dear Scott,

Riding a hardtail not only makes you a better rider—it makes you a better person.

A Cycling Coach is a syndicated journalist whose advice column, “Ask a Cycling Coach,” appears in over 0 blogs worldwide.

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Email me here. For a complete index of albertnet posts, click here.

What We Talk About When We Talk About “Kit”

NOTE:  This post is rated R for mild strong language.

Introduction

You might not actually care if cyclists use the word “kit” to mean “those silly Lycra clothes we bikers wear.”  Frankly, I don’t much care myself.  But I do care how we approach language in general; how we choose the words we use; and what impact we can have on how the vernacular evolves.  If you love language—and don’t like it eroded by indiscriminate usage—then you should read this post.  It’s the third installment in a series about “kit,” and you can read the first installment here and the second here.

In this essay I rebut an argument from my friend W—, which you haven’t read.  Yeah, I know that’s awkward, but I don’t wish to quote W—’s entire e-mail.  So I’ll quote his most salient points, college-paper style.  If nothing else you’ll get a nice crash course here in identifying logical fallacies.

Straw man

W— begins his argument by stating, “Your whole argument boils down to this: ‘I don’t like Cool Hunting and the things they promote on their website; therefore, use of the word “kit” to mean cycling clothing is invalid.’”

This is a blatant example of what is called the “straw man” fallacy.  This argumentative technique involves erecting an inferior version of your opponent’s argument that can be easily knocked down.  Straw man fallacies can be effective, particularly when the audience doesn’t have the original argument at hand.  I’ll save you the trouble of looking at my earlier posts:  here is a distillation of what I wrote.

• When we use a word, we participate in all its connotations whether we like it or not.
• Using a word can subtly pressure others to adopt it; one teammate admitted, “‘Kit’ still sounds dumb to me, but I use the word because I think I am supposed to.”
• Perhaps “kit” is useful, but we can avoid sounding like wannabe Euro types by using a different term.
• “Costume” is a better word for bike clothing, because so many of us cyclists are poseurs. By using a term that mocks our own pretentiousness, we beat others to the punch.

The above points are from my first post.  That is, I made them before W— even pointed out to me that the website Cool Hunting uses the term “kit.”  How could my whole argument boil down to my reaction to a website I hadn’t yet seen when I made it?

In my second post, I made these points: 

• Cool Hunting’s use of the term “kit” does not, in my opinion, validate the word whatsoever. 
• Word choice is a matter not just of utility but of taste. The members of my bike club avoid “bidon,” despite knowing what it means, because we don’t like it. That “bidon” has a following doesn’t sway us.
• The elasticity of language and the basic ability of a word to convey meaning should not be trotted out as blanket justifications for adopting new usage.
• There is ample precedent for refusing to adopt popular expressions (e.g., “at the end of the day,” “step up our game,” “swing for the fences,” “incent”).

W—’s argument is a straw man fallacy because he has falsely claimed that one of my points is representative of all the others.  It simply isn’t. 

Meanwhile, W— hasn’t even represented my argument correctly as regards Cool Hunting.  I didn’t say Cool Hunting’s use of “kit” is invalid; I simply said that Cool Hunting’s use of “kit” doesn’t, by itself, validate widespread adoption of the word.  That is, I’m not going to start using “kit” just because some website does, especially when it’s a dorky website selling needless, overpriced, twee crap to hipsters.  W— either misunderstood what I meant by “validate,” or he’s quibbling.

Allow me to further clarify my position on “valid” vs. “validate.”  Here’s an analogy.  In the South, people often say “y’all.”  I find this a highly useful (i.e., valid) term, because it’s the only plural sense of “you” that exists in English.  However, the meaning it conveys is perhaps insufficient to validate my own use of the term, because “y’all” is not typical Californian vernacular and my use of it can be puzzling to people.  (I sometimes can’t resist its utility; this has caused others to think I was from the South or was pretending to be.)

By the way, there’s something you should know about Cool Hunting (this isn’t part of my argument, but is just a warning):

The red herring fallacy

Three paragraphs of W—’s e-mail pertain to arguments against “kit” advanced by our teammate Trevor, who started this ball rolling by questioning my use of “kit.”  Trevor attacks the notion that this term is specific and clear enough to be valid.  This is an entirely separate argument from mine, and for W— to respond to Trevor’s argument (in an e-mail addressed to me) is to commit a “red herring” fallacy.  When he writes, “Remember, the argument is not about what words you like or don’t like to use, it is about the correctness of the term ‘kit’ to refer to cycling clothing,” he’s refuting the wrong argument. My argument has always been about whether or not we ought to support “kit.” I’ve gone after its connotations, not its value as a conveyer of meaning.

As you probably already know, a red herring is an argument that seems reasonable, but doesn’t actually address your opponent’s argument.  (In my household it’s known as “red lobster” because my young daughter once goofed when rattling off a list of logical fallacies.)  A red herring can be an intentional effort to distract the audience from the subject, or an unintentional loss of focus.  W—’s red herring is a slide toward straw man, as it conflates Trevor’s argument with mine. 

Here’s an analogy.  Suppose both my kids hate spinach.  Suppose Lindsay says, “Spinach is gross because it’s slimy.”  And suppose Alexa says, “I hate spinach because it tastes like shit.”  To say, “Alexa, you’re forgetting that uncooked spinach on a salad is quite crisp” is to attack the wrong argument, conveniently ignoring what Alexa actually said.  (Take note:  I find “tastes like shit” to be a powerful and valid phrase, but not one that I’d allow my kids to actually use.  Again, utility is not the only criterion by which to judge linguistic choices.)

W— invokes another red herring when he links to this article about the origin of the word “bike,” joking that there may have been “some bike club back in 1882 or so whose riders had a raging argument about how ‘impossibly stupid’ and ‘twee’-sounding it was to refer to a bicycle as a ‘bike.’”  But the article he cites doesn’t concern any objection to “bike,” certainly not on the grounds that it was affectation of any kind.  If the British had adopted “bike” many years before Americans, and those Americans who adopted it also used silly words like “bidon,” maybe W— would be getting somewhere.  But “bike,” according to the article, is an Americanism.

Argumentum ad populum

W— contends that “it is correct, normal—and in fact quite common, even among non-Kiwi, non-Brit, non-Euro English speakers—to use the term kit to refer to a cycling jersey and shorts. None of your criticism of Cool Hunting refutes that. And in fact their usage serves as proof that even a non-cycling specific website with national/international reach uses the term in the way I describe.”  W— goes on to describe a survey he did among participants in the Port of Oakland ride, asking what they call bike clothing.  The result:  “8 out of 10 serious responses were ‘kit.’  These are real, living users of the English language.”  (I wonder if it’s really fair to throw out non-serious responses; after all, isn’t the court jester typically the voice of reason in Shakespeare?  And “real, living users” somehow makes me think of the signs outside strip clubs saying, “See and talk to live nude girls!”  Is this parenthetical aside a red herring?  Absolutely.  Will the phrase “nude girls” bring traffic to my blog?  I hope so.)

An argumentum ad populum fallacy is made when the popularity of an idea is represented as evidence of the legitimacy or veracity of that idea.  Sometimes it’s tempting to assume something is right simply because so many people believe that it is.  (Here’s a doozy of an argumentum ad populum:  “Cigarettes are great!  After all, 40 million Americans can’t be wrong!”)

Whether W— commits this fallacy hinges on what he means by “correct” where word choice is concerned.  So I’ll quote him again; he reiterates that “kit” is “correct English usage, in common parlance in the USA, at least among bikies.”  So for him, “correct” means “in common use,” and I hope I don’t commit my own straw man fallacy by paraphrasing his argument thus:  “People do call it ‘kit.’  Get over it.”

So, his “everybody’s doing it” argument works okay if you construe proper usage as “talking the way everybody else talks.” If we accept “conveys meaning” as the be-all and end-all of language, then W— isn’t really committing a fallacy here.  But of course we shouldn’t accept “conveys meaning” as the true calling of language.  That’s where the next fallacy comes in.

Naturalistic fallacy and the is/ought problem

The Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote, in A Treatise on Human Nature, “I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a god, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual copulations of proposition, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or ought not.”

Building on this, the British philosopher G.E. Moore introduced the term “naturalistic fallacy” and warned against drawing moral or qualitative judgments—the ought—from empirical observation—the is.  Notions like Social Darwinism, the validity of unrestrained capitalism, eugenics, Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, and so forth are all committing the naturalistic fallacy.  This fallacy lurks behind many a defeatist approach, such as, “If the great grey owl can’t handle a little habitat displacement, maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.  Fate favors pigeons.  Get over it.”

As language goes, the naturalistic fallacy promotes the assumption that the way words end up being used is the same thing as how words ought to be used.  So a  person may reason, “If enough people call a lectern a podium, well, I can too!  If teenagers are throwing around words like ‘twerk’ and ‘vape,’ well, maybe I should too, to show how youthful and with-it I am!  And, I can always use ‘their’ as a third-person singular possessive pronoun (e.g., ‘each person must have their own ticket’), since everybody else does it.  It has become correct, by definition!”  Okay, fine, talk like that.  But don’t assume everybody’s going to like it, or that everybody should.

What does this have to do with “kit”?  Well, W— keeps pointing out examples of how “kit” is used.  I’m trying to make the case that perhaps it ought not be used.  Not because “kit” is as foul as “YOLO” or “artisanal,” but because I think we (i.e., my bike club, and the readers of this blog) can do better.

The do-gooder problem

As for as I know, “the do-gooder problem” isn’t an established category of problem, like a logical fallacy is.  But I feel the need to address a whiff of egalitarian, all-together-now spirit in W—’s argument:  again and again, he equates “correct” with “normal” and “common.”    Thus, when a person like me seeks to fault all these good, common, honest people who are just gettin’ it said, the only way they know how ... well, this may come off as elitist.

To combat the possible PR issue here, I’d like to make a distinction between “elite” and “elitist.”  In my opinion, the desire to do something really well (i.e., better than the average person does) doesn’t make you elitist.  It may make you elite (if you’re successful), but being elite is not itself being elitist and is not a character flaw.

You know that viral YouTube video “Shit Cyclists Say”?  I won’t lie—I’ve heard a lot of those lines from my teammates and I’ve used a few myself—but our general level of discourse is much higher than this.  During bike rides, I’ve had fascinating discussions about economics, public key encryption, net neutrality, glaciers, human nature, and—yes—language.  We don’t judge—though we may debate—and we set a high standard for one another.

This high standard comes through in our members’ race reports, which are consistently funny, food-centric, and well-written.  One member even took a page from the celebrity playbook and enlisted a ghost writer to help burnish his report.  Even something as basic as the name of our training race has been subject to continual revision:  “Hammer Ride” became “Haimer Ride” (based on an e-mail typo) before being renamed “House of Pain” which (perhaps because it wasn’t original, or perhaps because it was too brash) was changed to “Domicile of Hurt” (the acronym being implicit).  This still wasn’t good enough so it was then changed to the delightfully redundant “Domicile of Yurt.”  It’s this spirit of constant innovation that makes me think we EBVCers (and you, elite reader of blogs) could be leaders in the linguistic realm instead of blithely adopting whatever trendy lingo we come across.

So, to reiterate:  “kit” is a valid term, perhaps not completely precise but nonetheless useful (unlike “irregardless” and “biweekly”).  I don’t care who uses “kit,” and I won’t call you out for using it, and I plan to use it myself from time to time as a safeguard against dogmatism (though anybody who knows me will automatically fill in the air quotes, like he or she presumably does every time I insert a pregnant pause before uttering the word “Internet”).  But, recognizing that we can choose to accept or deflect memes, I encourage you to second-guess “kit.”  Sure, it’s a word; sure, it’s valid—but is that really enough?

“Kit” Revisited - Not OK with “Kit” Commentary!

Introduction

In my last post I tried really hard to lead my readers away from using “kit” to refer to bike clothing.  My strategy wasn’t to definitively prove that Americans who use this word are dorks, but rather to introduce an alternative that was so clearly superior, further debate would be needless.

Well, the debate continues.  And if that’s not bad enough, one of my readers—an American living in New Zealand—got his knickers in a twist over a couple of gross inaccuracies in my essay, which were particularly jarring due to my  “smug confidence.”  (I suppose I should point out that I use the chiefly British expression “knickers in a twist” not because I’m trying to sound un-American but because it’s slightly less vulgar, to my ear, than “panties in a wad.”  And please note that I say “un-American” instead of “Euro” because “Euro” is one of the words that got me in trouble last time.)

In this post I shall first apologize, and then go on the offensive because another of my pals persists in trying to advance a nonsensical “living language” argument that really needs to die.

An apology

My first error, as pointed out by the Kiwi correspondent, involved this assertion:

Absolutely everybody who wears a jersey calls it a jersey.  This is a very useful word because it differentiates between a basic t-shirt and that funny Lycra thing with the zipper in front and the pockets in back.

I should not have said “absolutely everybody.”  I should have said “everybody in the United States.”  Obviously, in other countries people would have other words for this garment.  In the Ukraine, they’d call it “Джерсі,” which would phonetically sound like “dzhercee” (the “zh” is my approximation of the sound the “s” makes in “pleasure” and if you have trouble with it, just imagine Chekov, from the original “Star Trek,” saying “jersey”).  I don’t know what they’d call a bike jersey in China, and that’s a shame, because that’s my blog’s third biggest audience (after the US and the Ukraine).  Of course, those who don’t speak English probably don’t spend a lot of time on albertnet.

So why does it matter that I said “absolutely everybody”?  Well, I may have confused some non-American English speakers.  I’ve been advised that while “Antipodean club cyclists would understand [my] usage from exposure to American media,” “non-cyclist Australasians might NOT recognise [my] usage of ‘jersey.’”

Dang it.  I was totally unaware of any of this, and moreover I had to look up “Australasian” (which I’d have guessed means “Australian/Asian fusion cuisine,” as in “throw a couple ginger-infused shrimp tempuras on the barbee!”) and “antipodean.”  The first two dictionaries I checked defined “antipodean” as “being as different as possible” or “on opposite sides of the earth,” which obviously don’t work here.  The third dictionary (the really thick one) had the definition that fit the context; this meaning was flagged “chiefly British.”

Now, it’s really tempting to defend myself here.  How come my Kiwi critic gets to use confusing British terms, wacky spelling (i.e., “recognise”) and single quotation marks, but I have to be aware of every connotation of “jersey” among English speakers worldwide?  How come when I read an original (i.e., non-Americanized) version of a Harry Potter book to my kids, I’m tickled by “jumper” for sweater and “trainers” for sneakers, but my confusing use of “jersey” is grounds for criticism?  Don’t worry, I’m not naive about the truth behind this apparent paradox.  As everybody knows, Brits are charming, but Americans like me are merely annoying.  I get that.  I also accept that for me to be so narrow-minded and insular with my America-centric perspective, while posing as an authority on how best to use the English language, is nothing short of sickening.

Perhaps even worse, as my New Zealand friend points out, I “seemed to equate ‘British’ and ‘European’ in a way that would make many Brits and not-a-few Europeans uncomfortable.”  I have nothing to say in my defense.  I’ve never bothered to interview Brits or continental Europeans about how they feel about one another, and though I believe I accurately represented the way in which many Americans, such as the ones who use “kit” to mean bike clothing, lump all members of the EU together when trying to emulate their cycling heroes, I did so without acknowledging, or perhaps even recognizing, how lame this is. 

But before I actually issue the formal apology, I have to figure out whom exactly I’m apologizing to.  The confusion I have caused among my overseas audience (2.5% of whom hail from the UK) is perhaps offset by the delicious satisfaction they must have derived from decrying my ignorance.  On the whole, was their discomfort greater than the pleasure they got from issuing scathing, probably profane, judgments about me and my ilk?

Well, just in case it was, I hereby apologize to all Europeans and Brits.  I’m sorry I’m a stupid, narrow-minded American, and that my blog is spreading my corrosive ignorance across the world.

It’s very tempting to apologize to Americans as well, but that’s a complicated matter.  After all, both my geopolitical ignorance and my smug confidence are core American values.  If I act apologetic about embracing freedom and patriotism, well, maybe the terrorists win.  So let me say this:  I hereby apologize to American expatriates worldwide, and any other progressive American who thinks we should be knowledgeable about other cultures, be humble about our beliefs, and use air-quotes around “beliefs” to indicate how tentative we are in believing in anything.

I suppose I could go fix my previous post, to be more inclusive of every meaning of jersey and more discerning about British vs. Euro, but that would make this post rather confusing.  And really, repentance isn’t the point; acknowledging my ignorance is.  So, knowing my original essay will be read by more people in the future, I want to make a special apology to any non-American or expatriate-American English speaker who reads it on his or her birthday.  I truly hope I don’t ruin anybody’s birthday.

(Note that I cannot bring myself to apologize separately for being smugly confident.  I believe I am incapable of blogging timidly.  Blogging, as far as I’m concerned, is an intrinsically audacious act.)

Back on the offensive

Okay, enough of that.  It’s time to beat back a burning bush some more.  I’m talking about the ongoing attempt of another correspondent to justify “kit.”  His first shot is the rhetorical equivalent of an air ball:  “Living language Exhibit A.”  In case you’re reading this essay after that link has gone stale, it’s to a website called Cool Hunting (headline:  “Three Fresh Cycling Kits for Spring”) selling a wide variety of awful things:  ugly brown leather cycling gloves that look like Isotoners with the fingers cut off; a coffee cup holder for your handlebars; a hand-painted bike bell; underwear for cycling; a suit described as “Movement-Minded Suiting” that could make anybody look like a d-bag; and a whole bunch of particularly ugly Rapha clothing.  (I know “ugly Rapha” is redundant, but I thought “particularly Rapha clothing” might confuse somebody.)  In other words, it’s a purveyor of awful, overpriced, over-precious, totally needless crap for pretentious dickwads with too much money.  That Cool Hunting uses the term “kit” does not, in my opinion, validate the word whatsoever.  I’m astonished anybody would say so.  If this website hadn’t been trotted out by a defender of “kit,” I’d have cited it myself to explain exactly why “kit” is a term any old-school, non-hipster, self-respecting bicyclist might wish to avoid.

The person who trotted out the Cool Hunting justification for “kit” was quickly rebuked (by others, not me, I might add).  So he  replied, “Call it Bay Area slang, if it that'll make it go down easier. An idiomatic usage in a micro-dialect, if you like. But what you cannot deny is that there ARE people using the word ‘kit’ to mean a cycling jersey and cycling shorts. Living language at its best.”

Okay, first of all, I can’t see how impugning the Bay Area would make anything go down easier.  I do like the idea of micro-dialect just fine, and have embraced it for decades.  (For example, my brothers and I have long used the term “tranja”—pronounced “tron-ya” and taken from a 1960s “Star Trek” episode—to indicate any flavored beverage, and my daughter has now adopted the term.)  But the mere fact of people in any community using a word does not justify promotion of that word, and is not necessarily “living language at its best.”

Consider this:  so far, I have never heard any member of my bike club use the word “bidon,” despite all of us knowing what it means (a water bottle, in Velominati/cool-hunting/poseur/d-bag parlance).  We rightfully avoid “bidon,” despite knowing what it means,  because, evidently, we just don’t like it.  Word choice is a matter of taste, and those who respect language have far higher standards than “what others will be able to grasp.”

I think it’s crucial to understand the difference between evolution and mere change.  Evolution implies progress:  in nature, to evolve generally means becoming better suited for survival.  But when we say language “evolves,” we’re not talking about natural selection.  Sloppiness is just as likely to transform a language.  For example, the word “biweekly” used to mean something specific.  It either meant “every two weeks” or “twice a week,” but not both.  But because people began using it both ways, dictionaries eventually accepted the second meaning as legit, and now the word “biweekly” is utterly useless—it is impossible to tell from context what is meant.  From a usability perspective, this word has been pushed toward extinction.

Even when changes to a language don’t dilute meaning, choosing words carefully is worthwhile.  Often, when two words are equally precise and do an equal job of getting a point across, one is still better than the other.  If we say, “Pass me a facial tissue please,” that sounds stilted and odd, and begs the question, “Why didn’t you say ‘Kleenex’?”  And if my daughter asked her mother for a “snot rag,” she would be rightly reprimanded. 

Clarity is sometimes overrated.  To simply grasp a word’s meaning is nothing special; even a beast can do that.  My daughter did a science experiment with our cat.  It has been well established that our cat knows her name and will actually respond to a call of “Misha!” (particularly if it is issued from the kitchen).  The other day Alexa and I were on the sofa, with the cat on Alexa’s lap.  “Hey Mom,” Alexa said, “Call out ‘feces’ in the same voice you’d call out ‘Misha.’”  My wife called out from the kitchen, “Feeee-ces!”  This summoned the cat just as effectively as “Meeee-sha!” ever did.  So we brought the cat back to the sofa and tried again, but this time with “Eggplant.”  Despite being uttered in the same singsong way, it produced no reaction from the cat.  My wife called “Feeee-ces!” again, and immediately the cat trotted back in there, tail held high.  Following this breakthrough, my daughter started calling the cat “Feces” all the time.  I put my foot down.  “We named her ‘Misha’ because we like that name,” I told her.  “I do not like the word ‘feces.’  You are forbidden to use it in reference to the cat.”  Now, is that bad parenting, on the grounds that the cat does understand the particular meaning of “feces” within our household’s micro-dialect?  I truly hope nobody thinks so.

I am not a fan of “kit,” but I’m not interested in continuing to debate its aesthetic merit, nor the question of whether its (supposed) utility is enough to offset its Velominatic air.  But what I’m trying to do here is squash the idea that the elasticity of language can be trotted out as justification to blithely adopt any new usage that manages to convey meaning.

You still think all linguistic change is for the good?  Well, think about all the corporate jargon so many of us are subjected to on a daily basis.  If you were to hear the following on a conference call, you might only find it a slight exaggeration:  

At the end of the day, the value proposition needs to by synced up with our bottom line, so if we’re going to step up our game, tee this thing up, and swing for the fences, the reality is that—candidly—we’ve got to get Product’s skin in the game, and really incent those folks to add value up the whole stack, because when you peel back the layers of the onion, you can see that business synergies are table stakes in this business, and shareholder value demands that we either reinvent ourselves with some disruptive technologies or we’re going to be in the position of having to ventilate this workforce.  I mean, this is the world we live in.  It is what it is.

If you’re not gagging right now, you’re on the wrong web page.  Maybe you should head over to Cool Hunting.

OK Calling Bike Clothes “Kit”?

Introduction

Some people really care about words.  My favorite people are the type who will argue passionately and at length about a subtle shade of meaning.  I was reminded of this when, in a group e-mail to my cycling club, I employed some questionable vernacular, causing  a massive e-mail debate, comprising over thirty messages in all.

In this post I’ll capture some of the snarkier highlights of the debate; get at the heart of why “kit” is such a divisive term; and provide the perfect alternative so all cyclists can enjoy nomenclature that’s as frictionless as their bicycles’ bearings.

The mêlée

It must be said that a widespread dialogue was already underway, on a topic you shall read about soon enough, when my friend Trevor commented on my use of “kit.”  (As you may recall, our verbal sparring has appeared in these pages before.)  He wrote, “Calling it ‘kit’ is the pot calling the kettle black.  That’s British hipster lingo, and if they say things like ‘Campag’ and ‘mech’ and then say ‘bidon’ you should choose wisely from such a low body of terms.  ‘Kit’ is unwise.”

To appreciate Trevor’s point requires a bit of background.  About a year ago, in these pages, I excoriated the Velominati, a bunch of self-styled cycling experts, for their blatant cultural affectation.  One of the things I pointed out was that saying “bidon” instead of bottle strikes me, like so many of their behaviors, as pretentious and twee.  My outspokenness in this vein puts me in a vulnerable position should I ever abuse such lingo myself.

With this in mind, I immediately fell on my sword, replying-all, “Nice catch on ‘kit,’ Trevor.  I certainly wobbled over my own line there.”  But even though I agreed with him, several members of the club stepped forward to defend “kit.”  Here are some salient comments.  (I won’t bother identifying the correspondents other than to give each of them his/her own text color so you can tell them apart.)

è Here in Kiwiland ‘kit’ is not a hipster term. No one would call riding clothing (or sporting uniform of any kind) anything but ‘kit’. Even to my still somewhat Yankee ears ‘kit’ sounds absolutely common.

è Newb.

è Curmudgeon.

è As to “kit” and “curmudgeon,” might I suggest a dictionary?

è I was being economical! And I do have a dictionary. Also, “curmudgeon” was a polite form for what I really wanted to call you.

è Sounds like something you need to discuss with your therapist.

è Hold on a sec, I’m still trying to find “newb” in the dictionary…

è Newbie or noob is old prep school talk for the “new boy.” As far as I can tell from my OED, “new boy” likely goes back to Chaucer.

è I like and use the term kit. What other one-word term is there that works better? (No, MB, “costume” doesn’t count!)

è The convenience of “kit” is illusory. Just what is it? It isn’t just jersey and shorts. It’s everything and not everybody has the same stuff. My recollection from listening to British sports announcers is that they use the word correctly, as in “that’s a nice bit of kit.” It’s used specifically, not generally. If you’re going to buy a cycling kit, what are you buying? If you bring your racing kit with you, what’s in it? Glasses, helmet, sunblock,…? It goes beyond what you wear.

è I took a break from cycling from about 1999 to 2008. Before 1999 I had never heard the word “kit” when referring to cycling clothing. It was always a “jersey” and “shorts”. When I returned in 2008, the whole outfit was a ‘kit”. “Kit” still sounds dumb to me, but I use the word because I think I am supposed to.

è Do people (or hipsters) prefer ‘strip’?

è Okay, I’ll bite.  “Strip” is short for what? Strip joint, strip mall? And don’t think I haven’t noticed the single quotation marks. By using them, you’ve made both our points, I think.

è I did not mean to offend anyone. The word “kit” is not dumb. I’m the dummy.  Since the shorts and jersey, indeed the whole cycling get-up, are now one (dashing!) matching ensemble, a word is needed.

è I think you’re missing much of the point of this list if you fail to offend at least one recipient.  I think kit sounds dumb, too.

A question of motive

To me, the fundamental question of whether or not it’s okay to say “kit” centers around motive.  Are we trying to sound Euro, or not?  The difficulty is that we cannot know each person’s motive in using this word, and frankly, I doubt many of us bother to question our own motives in adopting one word or another.  Meanwhile, when we use a word, we participate in all its connotations whether we like it or not.  We are not, usually, at liberty to explain our motives.

The first respondent I quoted above is a American expatriate residing in New Zealand.  I have no doubt that “kit” is a totally innocuous word there (as are his single quotation marks, per Trevor’s comment).  The reason “kit” perks the American ear is that it’s one of those British words that has only recently crossed the Atlantic, and isn’t in widespread use beyond our cycling vernacular.  For such a term to become ubiquitous even within such a vernacular takes time, and may not happen if the term isn’t particularly useful.

Here’s an example of how that works.  Consider the word “jersey.”   Absolutely everybody who wears a jersey calls it a jersey.  This is a very useful word because it differentiates between a basic t-shirt and that funny Lycra thing with the zipper in front and the pockets in back.  I cannot think of a single effective synonym for “jersey.”  Use of this word is so entrenched (having been in wide use when I started cycling, in 1981), most people don’t even know its etymology—that it’s named after Jersey, the largest of the islands in the English Channel.

Consider the correspondent above who said, “I use the word [kit] because I think I am supposed to,” even though she personally finds it dumb.  She wants to fit in, and the question is, who has the authority—and the right—to make this word, or any word, into a cultural signifier that tells whether someone is “in” or “out”?  Positioning yourself as an authority and throwing around a word like “kit” is, to me, a distasteful act.  (A cyclist doing so might be said to “velominate,” if I may coin a term.)  Of course, it’s dangerous to reproach anyone on these grounds because we can’t know who is promoting a term versus merely (and sometimes reluctantly) adopting it.

Sometimes will I use an uncommon word instead of a familiar one if doing so increases exactitude.  Consider “twee,” which I used above.  My American Heritage Dictionary flags this word as “Chiefly British.”  Uncommon as it may be in American English, I doubt anybody uses it just to seem more British or more Euro.  “Twee” is free of trans-Atlantic cultural baggage, because modern usage has morphed it and thus reduced its air of British-ness.  In the original parlance, “twee” meant “overly precious or nice” (it stems from an alteration of “tweet,” a baby-talk alteration of “sweet”).  But when modern Americans use “twee,”  we keep the sense of precious but drop the sense of sweet; quite often, we use “twee” to flag instances of hipster affectation.  (Check out urbandictionary.com if you don’t believe me.)  The more this word evolves on the American tongue, the further behind it leaves its “chiefly British” air.

In the absence of such evolution, and in a case where a word’s usage is restricted to a subset of a subset of society (e.g., the more cutting-edge members of the cycling crowd), we must ask ourselves:  can a somewhat useful but chiefly British term be used innocently by an American  without opening the door to accusations of affectation?  Or to put it more simply, is it twee to say “kit”?

How efficient is “kit”?

The key to solving this riddle, I think, is to weight the utility of “kit” against the inescapable fact of being a cultural vanguard by using it in the U.S.  If the utility is bulletproof, the word is bound to gain wider adoption and will, over time, cease to be a cultural signifier.

So how useful is “kit”?  There’s no question that it’s convenient, being a single syllable and such a short word.  But where language is concerned, let’s not confuse convenience with efficiency.  Yes, “kit” is easy to write and easy to type, but having written a blog post called “Down with Convenience!” I can’t bring myself to care about ease alone.  After all, saving labor is also the justification for going out in public dressed in the sweatpants you wore to bed, which practice I totally disapprove of (unless you’re a gorgeous UC SantaBarbara coed who makes all attire look great).

The point of language is to express yourself with precision, and educated people can be precise without being verbose.  That’s the whole point of having a large vocabulary.  It is more efficient to use the word “twee,” for example, than to use a paragraph worth of words to explain exactly why it bothers you when college grads get written up in the local style magazine for their online storefront selling locally-made macramé caddies for their college roommate’s deluxe line of handmade, gluten-free moleskin notebooks.

So does “kit” do a significantly better job than “jersey and shorts,” “bike clothing,” or “overdue Voler order”?  Not necessarily.  As Trevor points out, there isn’t a single, unified meaning of “kit,” since we all have different stuff; thus, it’s not nearly as useful a word as “jersey.”  On the other hand, as another correspondent rightly pointed out, “kit” does uniquely connote “one (dashing) matching ensemble,” in a way “bike clothing” does not.  Indeed, I never heard (or used) the word “kit” until it became common for bike clubs to order all their clothing—including socks, arm warmers, vests, and even gloves—from a single manufacturer so it can be customized with colors and logos that create a uniform.  If I throw on a pair of plain black shorts from company X and a plain blue jersey from company Y, that’s not really a kit.

So, perhaps “kit” is useful … but is it useful enough that we should use it, even at the risk of sounding like poseurs?  My answer is, we don’t need to determine this at all:  we can slip between the horns of the dilemma and trot out a totally new word, devoid of wannebe-Euro overtones, that is as precise—or more precise—than kit.

A perfect word?

During the e-mail debate, correspondents did trot out alternatives to “kit.”  (Speaking of precise words, maybe “debate” isn’t the perfect word for that protracted correspondence.  At  a post-ride refreshment stop, one of my teammates described it as an “e-mail shit-storm,” for which I chided him, because my thirteen-year-old daughter, herself a budding cyclist, was present.  Another teammate said, “Right, you shouldn’t call it that.  It was more of a shit-tornado.”  Did my daughter say, “Thanks for the visual on that”?  No, I beat her to the punch.)

“Strip” was proposed, along with “livery” and “clobber.”  The benefit of these is that, being virtually unknown in U.S. cycling parlance, they won’t send any untoward cultural signals.  But the use of “strip” as a noun doesn’t even appear in my six-inch-thick Webster’s unabridged dictionary.  The guy who suggested “strip” is the New Zealander, whose Collins English dictionary (likely published for the New Zealand market) defines strip as “the clothes worn by the members of a team, esp a football team.”  The downside of “strip” is that, being unknown here, it’s useless except as a private joke. 

Similarly, I’ve often promoted my brother’s favorite term, “ABCs,” an acronym for “Angry Biker Clothes,” but to understand this, you have to know the term “angry biker,” meaning any uptight, aggro racer-type, but of course this term isn’t widely known outside the Albert family.

But wait!  There was one term thrown about in the e-mail thread that I really like, notwithstanding the fact that it was both introduced and rejected in a single parenthetical aside:  “(No, MB, costume doesn’t count! )”

What’s wrong with “costume”?  The more I contemplate it, the more I like it.  At face value, bicycling clothing fits within the basic definition of costume (“a style of dress characteristic of a particular country, period, or people”).  It’s true that other definitions bleed over (e.g., “an outfit or disguise worn on Mardi Gras, Halloween, or a masquerade”), and it’s also true that “costume” makes us think of superheroes.  This isn’t necessarily inaccurate, though; after all, if you took the typical Lycra cycling getup and added a cape, you wouldn’t be far from Superman or Batman (other than the lack of boots).

If you think about it, the sense of an outfit worn to a masquerade fits perfectly, because the vast majority of us cyclists really are just pretending.  Our participation in the sport, though perfectly valid and worthwhile, is really just our best facsimile of the professional peloton.  Club racers invariably have this aching desire to look just like the pros, even if we fully grasp the vast distance between them and us.

You may argue that, in light of these ideas, using “costume” would be a form of self-mockery.  I would agree—but then, sometimes self-mockery is a good thing.  Consider the song “Yankee Doodle.”  This song, as we all know (and as neatly described by Wikipedia), “was sung by British military officers to mock the disheveled, disorganized colonial ‘Yankees,’” until “the Americans embraced the song and made it their own, turning it back on those who had used it to mock them.”

Likewise, by using a term that mocks our own pretentiousness, we bicyclists beat others to the punch.  Who are these “others”?  I can think of plenty:  the non-bike people who think we look silly and/or act overly self-important; the casual bike people who laugh at our aspirations toward Euro-cool; the bike club curmudgeons who rescue us when we start to velominate. 

Brits and Kiwis, along with Americans who are lazy and/or blasé, can keep on saying “kit,” but I’m going with “costume” from now on.