Some of my best guy friends shave their legs. We all wear spandex regularly.

In public.

What can I say? It's true.

You hope, somewhere deep down, they're going to say it.

At first introduction, they look down before they look at your face.

"Nice legs"

See, what kind of legs he (or she) has gives you a good indication of the ride ahead. Will it be a fast ride? Or pain, pain pain? Is the evening is going to drag?

I have always had big legs. I chalk it up to being short. I need to have more muscle mass to keep up. Since I don't race any more, muscle isn't a huge concern. Fat is.

I never got around to shaving my legs. I ought to do it if I keep riding.

I mean, it's not *that* odd , right? Shaving my legs would reduce my chance of infection if I crash. When I was hit by a car a few years back, much of the skin on the lower part of one side of my left leg was wiped out. The hair remained. When my leg finally scabbed, my hair was matted in with the scabs.

I had to pull the hairs out.

Ouch.

Today, I rode 80 miles. At the halfway point was Harrisburg's American Music Festival. I leaned back onto the bike and listened for a while to some quasi-Ecuadorian, American Indian Newageish Irish music. It was not the place for a straight bachelor type in spandex.

So I didn't hang around. Instead, I rode a few more hours. The water bottle level dropped drastically during a long 30mph pull up an endlessly false flat. A supermarket appeared on the horizon. I stopped to buy Gatorade.

"Hey! I didn't know you rode bike!" It was Prof Ronning. She scoped me out.

"Yup. I've been riding for a few hours. I figure I'll put in 80 miles today."

Meeting people I know is always awkward and weird -- everyone remembers me as this quietly reserved, focused academic type. They're not used to seeing small muscles bulge underneath a spandex uniform.

When people tell me I am too thin, I reply, "Auugh! I need to lose weight!" They never understand. But to a cyclist's eye, I should probably lose 10 pounds.

Don't believe me? Look at Bobby Julich's Legs.

• * **

Bobby placed ninth in today's time trial. I hope he does well this Tour. He's a real gentleman. I remember buying old Credit Agricole arm warmers from him; he donated the money to a blood bank. I wouldn't even mind if he won the Tour. He can do it.