A hotel in New Zealand has banned Lycra shorts at the breakfast table. The sight of cyclists with their nether regions swathed in stretchy fabric is distressing to children, and to anyone else trying to eat a quiet breakfast, claims the owner. He has a point.
There is something uniquely unpleasant about skintight material bulging across imperfect bodies. Adam and Eve gazed on one another’s nakedness without shame but as soon as they knew sin the fig leaves came out (Satan had not yet invented sportswear).
The bulges and creases of the human body can be shocking, as they are in the paintings of Francis Bacon. But if the painter had trussed his models in bodystockings, that would have really given the pope a reason to scream. Cyclists should no more breakfast in public in Lycra than they should ride wearing dressing gowns.
