Old Guys Who Get Fat In Winter

This is one of my favorite cycling shirts.  It pretty much sums up my conditioning over the past few years.  I get on the bike in spring, get in reasonably good shape, maintain it throughout the summer, and then slack off in mid-October the first time I feel a chill when I go out to ride in the morning.  I typically put on 10 or 15 pounds in the winter, and then lose it all by the end of the summer.  This isn’t particularly good, but that’s the way it is.

As I was getting dressed to ride the other day, I realized that most men who see me wearing this shirt chuckle, ask me where I got it, and say “I gotta get me one of those.”  Most women don’t comment at all, although quite a few roll their eyes and give me That Look.  (If you’ve ever been married you know the look I’m talking about.)  I don’t usually make gender-based generalizations, but here I think I’ve stumbled on an essential difference between men and women:  I’ve never met a woman who would wear a shirt that says she’s old or fat.