Respect

I admired the perfectly crafted cappuccino before me, especially the artful mocha brush strokes through the white foam. The warm Sunday morning sun and dry air made the roast’s aromas and chocolate smack all the more piquant. The patio of an Italian café is a fine place to begin any day in Boulder.

The tranquility of the moment deformed like the foam in my drink when I suddenly found myself surrounded by a gang of extra-large lycra-clad road bikers. The incongruous sight of bulbous, sagging flesh in XXL spandex instantly razed any impression that this was an athletic lot, yet here they were, stretching their old groins, mindlessly chattering and feeding on coffee, juice and croissants, which I assumed would fuel a ride of some insignificant distance.

“Gawd, these people are disgusting,” I said to my friends Sam and Emily. It was an awful thing to say, but they agreed that the jiggling belly fat, pizza-dough man-teats and sausage-and-meatballs spaghetti-crotch — all squashed into a body-condom covered in company logos — was at least a little unappetizing. It was not their fault, per se — no one looks good in lycra, not even me (two obvious exceptions, of course, are Megan Fox and, my favorite, Giada di Laurentiis).

I studied the rotund roadies, which is not to say that I looked at them, but rather that I analyzed my own feelings about these carefree boomers, their glasses affixed with protruding rearview mirrors and their $8,000 carbon-fiber frame bikes, which I overheard one guy refer to as a “steed.” These people were like everyone else: just looking for an outlet — social and perhaps even physical — to somehow fill a gap in their lives. It’s like the old saying, “Biking: it’s something to do.” I actually don’t know if that is a saying or not, but it should be. Who can blame them for that?

What was most interesting to me was not the padding that makes it look like you’re smuggling a loaf of crap in your pants, but how at ease these people were with it. Lycra is part of the biking community, and it makes them feel comfortable in the same way that European climbers wear manpris. Who cares that no one else shares their aesthetic?

But at what point does exchanging the mores of mainstream society for the queerer set held by your fringe community make others lose respect for you?

One thing I’ve recently realized is that if people respect you, you can get away with a lot. Lose that respect and suddenly, nothing is permissible any longer. For example, one friend is down on his luck. He has joined the “Lost Generation” of young, bright, overly educated 20somethings that is experiencing an astronomic unemployment rate of 18 percent. As such, he’s adopted a “certain moral flexibility,” as he calls it, which permits him to steal food and clothing that are not his. It was no shock that my respect for him diminished, but I was surprised by how this decline directly correlated to how funny I found his already immature humor.

Soon, the roadies were off on their ride, and the café was once again peaceful. Twelve hours earlier, I was on a flight home from the Red River Gorge and had the pleasure of sitting next to an attractive woman. That had always been a dream of mine—every time I get on a plane, I pray that Giada boards the flight and takes the open seat next to me and we spend the rest of the flight making plans to crush juicy tomatoes together—but the hairy human dregs that smell of broiled meat have always been an abrupt and cruel end to my fantasy.

This girl was no Giada, but close. After telling me all about her giant diamond engagement ring and $40,000 wedding, she asked about the “gross” scars on the back of my hands. I explained what gobies were, and what rock climbing was all about.

“Look at your fingers!” she said. “They’re all knobby and swollen.”

“Yeah, if you think my hands are bad, you should see my toes,” I said.

“Ewwwwww!” she said. “Oh, yeah, my fiancé tried rock climbing once. He had to squeeze his feet into these tiny little girly ballet shoes!” She seemed tickled by the memory of her masculine Venezuelan boyfriend doing something so effeminate as rock climbing.

I thought about it and realized that climbers aren’t much less odd-looking than lycra-clad roadies. We’re a bunch of messy-haired and smelly weirdoes with the perpetually scabby, gross hands of a leper. We even wear harnesses that accentuate parts of ourselves that should never be accentuated—no different than bike spandex.

Maybe this is why, like Rodney Dangerfield said, we can’t get no respect.

 

About The Author

Andrew Bisharat

Andrew Bisharat is a writer and climber based in western Colorado. He is the publisher of Evening Sends and the co-host of The RunOut podcast.

Free Climb. Free Thought.

Join the climbing discourse.

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