Yet Another Cycling Forum

General Category => Freewheeling => Topic started by: steveB on 01 April, 2008, 01:00:32 pm

Title: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: steveB on 01 April, 2008, 01:00:32 pm
If  this (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/matt_dickinson/article3656432.ece) article has been put somewhere else, apologies.

I've never thought of cycling as being a middle-class sport ???
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: andygates on 01 April, 2008, 01:12:55 pm
Entry costs are greater than running or footy.  And cycling has a funny set of class rules all of its own.

Most coaches used to look at her and wonder how someone who even now is 5ft 5in and less than 9½stone (although capable of squatting twice that in the gym), could possibly take on the big girls of track sprinting.

*has a little Charlotte-esque moment*
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Charlotte on 01 April, 2008, 01:17:54 pm
She's a babe and no mistake  :)

This made me sad, though:

Quote
Before then, there is also the danger from White Van Man. “Everyone says the track is so dangerous, but my biggest risk is being knocked off my road bike because someone is too impatient to wait 20 seconds and overtakes me on a bend. I want to go out with a big neon sign saying, ‘Do you know how important my legs are!’ There are a lot of people out there who hate cyclists.”
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Glosbiker on 01 April, 2008, 01:27:46 pm
I thought cycling was a working class sport?  It certainly has been for the majority of its history.

It's only become a middle class activity in the past few years when those with wallets greater than their commonsense has begun to buy into it.  Rapha is a good point-in-case.....

All the LBS staff I know are solidly working class in origin I'd say (and that's not meant condescendingly)
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: SimonB on 01 April, 2008, 01:39:36 pm
I don't find her attractive at all. She's a bit plummy/pasty-looking.

One of the German riders in the 2-up pursuit sprint was very tasty, however.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Nick H. on 01 April, 2008, 01:46:22 pm
Let's not forget that the first bikes were strictly for toffs. They were the sports cars of their day.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Ian H on 01 April, 2008, 01:52:19 pm
I thought cycling was a working class sport?  It certainly has been for the majority of its history.


Racing cyclists were employed to show off the reliability of their steeds. 'Sports' and touring cycling became a working class activity when cars became affordable.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Dave on 01 April, 2008, 06:46:25 pm
I feel the need to post this:

http://oakley.com/women/uniquely/victoria

Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: gonzo on 01 April, 2008, 06:53:46 pm
Who was that lizzy girl on the track team?

I am slightly ashamed to say that Vicky is probably better built than me!
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 April, 2008, 06:54:17 pm
Since when has "weird" been a noun?

Phwooar, anyway  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: andygates on 01 April, 2008, 09:59:22 pm
Since when has "weird" been a noun?

Since it originally was wyrd and meant "doom" as in fate, the path tracked out for you, and all that deterministic rot.  Which would have been, oh, back when years only had three digits. ;)
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: kyuss on 01 April, 2008, 11:21:50 pm
I don't find her attractive at all. She's a bit plummy/pasty-looking.

Thank god I'm not the only one to think this. I've been trying to work up the courage to post something similar for ages but thought better of it. It's not that she's unattractive, she's just not all that.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: David Martin on 01 April, 2008, 11:29:18 pm
I don't find her attractive at all. She's a bit plummy/pasty-looking.

Thank god I'm not the only one to think this. I've been trying to work up the courage to post something similar for ages but thought better of it. It's not that she's unattractive, she's just not all that.

Lock, load, aim .....












but seriously, to each their own. I think she is somewhat tasty myself..

..d
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: andygates on 01 April, 2008, 11:32:56 pm
Posh birds are right goers. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Greenbank on 01 April, 2008, 11:35:16 pm
Rar!
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: kyuss on 01 April, 2008, 11:40:59 pm
Posh birds are right goers. :thumbsup:

You're not joking. I once dated a proper middle/upper class older woman a couple of times a few years back. Prim and proper horsey type. Dirty little minx.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: TheLurker on 03 April, 2008, 01:54:36 pm
Following on from Charlotte's comment about this quote...

Quote
Before then, there is also the danger from White Van Man. “Everyone says the track is so dangerous, but my biggest risk is being knocked off my road bike because someone is too impatient to wait 20 seconds and overtakes me on a bend. I want to go out with a big neon sign saying, ‘Do you know how important my legs are!’ There are a lot of people out there who hate cyclists.”

As grim as it sounds it seems to me that until a really high profile cyclist, by which I mean someone known to to the general public and not someone who is only well known in cycling circles (like Zak Carr or Simon Doughty), is seriously hurt in an RTA that not a lot is going to improve for us mortals.  Even then I wouldn't be optimistic.

Please don't run away with the idea that I actually want something like this to happen, I just have a morbid turn of mind.

I wonder what it would/will take to improve things for cyclists?
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: andygates on 03 April, 2008, 02:19:27 pm
More cyclists.  Everything shows that cyclists are safer when there's lots of 'em around.  Drivers are more used to 'em and more drivers are likely to also *be* 'em. 

Splatting a celeb rider won't have any effect at all.  Five minutes of headlines then back to business as usual.

Lots of people riding bikes is the best way to make it safe for lots of people to ride bikes.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: mattc on 03 April, 2008, 02:34:33 pm

Lots of people riding bikes is the best way to make it safe for lots of people to ride bikes.
Andy,
Whilst this is not wrong, I fear that it ignores the barriers that currently prevent the increase in cycling:
one of these is very definitely the PERCEIVED danger.

Look how keen people are to drive vehicles that endanger OTHERS if it gives them (and/or their children) greater perceived safety - there is no way that those same people will put their own lives at risk just to make the roads safer for future cyclists.

I think we need another angle of attack.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: bobb on 03 April, 2008, 02:41:15 pm
I don't find her attractive at all.

I dread to think what the (obviously few) women you've ever shagged looked like!

Notice the past tense  ;)
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: andygates on 03 April, 2008, 02:46:34 pm
Whilst this is not wrong, I fear that it ignores the barriers that currently prevent the increase in cycling:
one of these is very definitely the PERCEIVED danger.

Absolutely correct, sadly.  Worth its own thread though.  :)
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Jakob on 03 April, 2008, 02:54:49 pm
I don't find her attractive at all.

Same..I find her the least attractive out of the current ladies team.
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: LEE on 03 April, 2008, 03:09:38 pm
She looks like a true, genuine, 100%, National sporting hero.

That's my only opinion of her looks (less it detracts from what she's achieved.)
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: rogerzilla on 04 April, 2008, 06:48:27 am
She doesn't have the thunder thighs of some of the women sprinters.  One of the German girls I saw was so bottom-heavy she could have starred in a Sir Mix-A-Lot video.  I wouldn't want to race her to a "30" sign though!
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: geraldc on 05 April, 2008, 10:47:51 am
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2008/03/29/2008-03-29_extreme_makeover_tammy_thomas_on_trial_t.html

Now that's a cyclist who really needed a makeover
Title: Re: Victoria Pendleton
Post by: Dave on 05 April, 2008, 11:55:11 am
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more_sports/2008/03/29/2008-03-29_extreme_makeover_tammy_thomas_on_trial_t.html

Now that's a cyclist who really needed a makeover

That five o'clock shadow really was a bit of a give away, wasn't it?