Cycling has a weird obsession. One that's older than helmets, older than carbon fiber bikes, and maybe based on a complete misunderstanding of the science. It's all about legs, specifically shaving your legs.
A ritual so ingrained that pro cyclists spend 15 minutes every other day doing it without question. And according to specialized wind tunnel study, makes them 79 seconds faster over 40 km. That's more than an arrow helmet, more than deep section wheels.
Shaving your legs might be the cheapest speed upgrade in the entire of cycling. At least that's what we've been told. But here's the plot twist.
Mike Burroughs, the aerodynamic genius behind Chris Bordman's Olympic gold medal winning bike, that Lotus 108, if you remember it, he thinks we've got it completely backwards. He said, "If something's not a very nice shape, i.e.
your leg, you don't want it to be smooth surface." Is he saying that hairy legs might actually be faster? Seriously, what?
This is the story of how a 100-year-old cycling ritual became one of cycling's most sacred traditions and why some experts think the science behind it might be flawed. To understand this deep obsession, we need to go back. We need to go way back.
According to cycling historian Dave Molton, professional racing cyclists have been shaving their legs for at least a hundred years. That's probably longer than girls have been shaving their legs. 100 years before anyone understood aerodynamics, before carbon fiber was in use, before cyclists even wore helmets.
So why were they doing it? The stories I could find from that era, they all gave different reasons. Some people said better massage, others said easier to clean wounds.
Some people even said looks more professional, whatever that means. But here's the thing, none of them mentioned speed. Now, fast forward to today.
Alex House, a regular on this podcast. I love Alex. He's a former world tour pro with EF Education.
I found an old interview that he gave to Bison magazine. And in it, he says, "I started shaving my legs maybe around the age of 14. It was a right of passage at a young age.
You can always tell when my last race was based on how long my leg hair is. If I'm not racing, I'm not shaving." Now, this was one of the first significant clues I found in unlocking this whole thing.
Alex only shaves his legs when he's racing. So, it's not about looking cool on solo training rides. It's about something different.
It's about belonging. Belonging to a tribe, not standing out as an outsider. And this actually started to make sense to me because think about it for a second.
If you go down to the local group ride and somebody new rocks up on your group ride for the first time, you don't know them. You have no data points on them. Is this guy or girl strong?
No idea. Is this a safe wheel? Is this someone you will comfortably descend behind at high speed?
You invariably look to their legs and you judge their ability based on that view. Not on the bike, not on the kit, on the legs. I went deep down the Reddit rabbit hole on this one, and one user summed up this position that thousands of others echoed.
He said, "Hairy legs equals Fred. It's that simple." Now, if you don't know what Fred is, it's a cycling kind of derogatory term for someone who's clueless around cycling.
Usually, you mismatch kit, odd cycling, gear choices. Throw it into Wikipedia, you get a funny answer. So, we have a 100-year-old tradition that might be based on a completely wrong understanding of the science.
So, it's time to unpack that science and have a look at it. I've had a chance on this podcast to chat with some of the best aerodynamic experts in the world. And I've also gone deep down the rabbit hole on wind tunnel data myself, and what I found challenges everything the cycling industry wants you to believe.
We're going to look at specialized wind tunnel study data. We're going to hear from the designer of the Olympic gold medal winning bike and we're going to discover why Primos Rugglitch won major cycling races with hairy legs. Okay, but first the science that started this whole obsession.
Specialized Morgan Hill wind tunnel. Chris U and Mark Coat are about to conduct the most comprehensive leg shaving study ever done. The test subject is Jesse Thomas, a professional triathlete.
The methodology, test him with hairy legs at 30 miles per hour, shave his legs, test again, measure the difference in watts. The results published in Vell magazine, 15 watts saved, a 7% reduction in drag. That's 79 seconds over 40 km.
Chris, you told that difference is basically like going from a traditional round tube frame all the way to a specialized venge. That's a serious shortcut in evolutionary terms. But they didn't stop there.
They tested five more cyclists using what they called the Chewbacca scale, which I absolutely love. Rating leg hair from a scale of 1 to 10, which assumingly represents Chewbacca. Every single rider showed improvements.
The hairier the legs, the higher up the Chewbacca scale, the bigger the time savings. Case closed, right? Well, not quite.
Specialized proved that smooth legs are faster. Except there was already data that contradicted this before they ever started the study. Let me read you something from Mike Burroughs.
Remember this guy who designed the Lotus 108 bike, the bike that Chris Borman rode the Olympic gold medal in 1992. Well, Boros said, "In the 1930s, someone put a smooth sphere into the wind tunnel. The wake it made was as big as two spheres.
They then put a thin piece of wire around the sphere just before the widest point, the wake half in diameter." What he's describing here is called a golf ball effect. Rough surfaces can actually reduce drag by creating a turbulent boundary layer that helps air stick to the surface.
Burrows went on, the joke is to give yourself a double moakin on your legs just before the widest point. It's very difficult to do and it would look very silly. It definitely would look very silly.
But if this is just about aerodynamics, surely we unquestionably follow the data. If the 79 seconds matter, why not strive for more? Also, why did Primis Rugglitch win the 2023 Toronto with hairy legs?
Why don't cyclists shave their arms? Because arms represent 35 to 40% of the surface area of legs. And why do Peter Sagans sometimes race with stubble?
I'm not buying it. There's something else going on here. So, let's look at what professional cyclists actually said when you ask them why they shave.
British cycling surveyed its athletes. The top reasons weren't aerodynamics. Number one was massage.
Grant horse cyclists get up to 25 massages per month and hairy legs pulls and that hurts. Speaking from firsthand experience, it really hurts. Number two is wound care.
If you've ever crashed your bike at high speed, it's much easier to clean a coat, to bandage it. Everything about that is much easier without hair on your legs. That's number two.
And the third one that's listed was tradition. It's what cyclists do. But now listen to what amateur cyclists said back over on Reddit on or on or cycling.
Shaved legs are like a badge that says you're serious about cycling. Another user said, "I started when I got my first real bike. It felt like I was joining a club.
" A third guy, and I love this one. He said, "I got passed by a dude last week with hairy legs, and it still hurts." Hey everybody, let's take a quick break to talk about the bike I'll be riding this season, Reap.
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I absolutely love my one and I couldn't recommend it highly enough. Back to the show. I was thinking about these in context of that quote from the beginning of the podcast from Alex House.
That quote really stuck in my brain. I started shaving my legs maybe around 14. It felt like a right of passage at a young age.
That's what he said, a right of passage. It almost sounds tribal and I think it sounds that way because it is that way. We say cycling's all about the numbers, about the watts, the weight, threshold, V2, coefficient of frontal drag, but it's not.
Shaved legs aren't a number. They're a signal. They're a message.
If we zoom out for a second, think about the biggest companies in the world. When I ask you to name the biggest companies in the world, like immediately Apple, Nike, they jump out straight away. And these companies spend so much money designing logos.
Millions of dollars in design fees on the Nike Swish or the Apple logo. Why? Because symbols communicate something instantly.
Trust. And in cycling, shaved legs are a symbol. They say, "I know what I'm doing.
I'm part of this. You can trust me on this wheel." And that matters because when you're in a bunch at 60 km an hour, you're a centimeter from the shoulder in front of you.
You're almost touching the wheel in front of you. There's no time for introductions. I don't get to browse your Straa profile or understand what your FTP scores were from your last test.
All I've got is the shape of the rider's legs in front of me. Hairy legs, I pause. I reassess.
Maybe I'll back off a little. Smooth legs, I relax. I follow.
It's subconscious, but it is really powerful. And that's why this tradition stuck. Even when the science was shaky, even when nobody mentioned drag, because it's not really about going faster, it's about fitting in.
It's about not being the one who looks like they don't belong. And it's not just pros doing this. It's your Saturday group ride.
It's your local chain gang. It's your club. And it starts early.
14 years old for Howy, not for speed, but because that's what the Fast Guys did. This is tribal, folks. This is ritualistic.
It's a uniform that says, "I'm serious. I've earned my place here." And that's it.
That's what this obsession is really about. So where does this leave us? Well, here's where it all starts to come together.
Because while the science might give us numbers, 15 watts saved, 79 seconds over 40 km, the culture gives us something else entirely, a message. I belong here. That's what smooth legs really say.
A silent signal in this hectic sport where trust matters. And that trust is built on cues like the texture of your legs at the start of the group ride. But some riders, they stop playing by those rules.
Rugglitch, Sagan, those generational talents. They've already earned their stripes. They're like artists at the peak of their craft.
They start breaking the rules because they can, not because they don't know the rules, but because they've transcended those rules. That's the privilege of greatness. But for everyone else, for me, for you, for the juniors, the weekend warriors, the ones still trying to prove themselves, the ritual still matters.
The aesthetic still matters. And that's why we're still shaving. Because what started as an old school racing tradition has become something deeper, a marker of identity, a performance cue, a subconscious code that cyclists across the world still read.
So now the big question, should you do it? Should you shave your legs? Well, if you're racing time trials where seconds matter, yes, 79 seconds is 79 seconds.
If you're a world tour rider doing this, doing grand tours, getting daily massages, yes, definitely your swan euro will thank you. If you're worried about crashes and road rash, look, the cleanup is definitely easier. If you're a weekend warrior who wants to go faster, jury's out.
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The decision to shave or not actually representative of something wider I see going on in cycling. Almost a cultural war in cycling. It's legacy old school tradition versus new entrance, the new wave.
And maybe that's what this really comes down to. It's a quiet tug-of-war between the legacy of the sport and that next generation redefining what it means to belong. The leg shaving debate isn't really about legs.
It's about who gets to be a real cyclist. Mike Borrows the aerodynamic genius might be right. Strategic hair placement could make you faster.
Specialized wind tunnel data is also right. Smooth legs reduce drag. But both them are missing the point because out on the road when you roll up to a group ride, nobody's calculating your drag coefficient.
They're looking at your legs and deciding if you belong.