As I was hauling the groceries up the stairs the other day, Shoko, at butt’s height behind me, commented on the relative smallness of my ass. ‘Relative’ is the key word here, of course, because she had spent the winter telling me of the largeness of it till then. But it made me feel good and reminded me of this quote from Tyler Hamilton’s book:

“You can tell a rider’s fitness by the shape of his ass and the veins in his legs, and these asses were bionic, smaller and more powerful than any I’d ever seen.”

These bionic bums were those of the first European pros he raced with, if memory serves. He was shocked and embarrassed by the lardiness of his derrière.

I’ve just finished the first 2 weeks of my training program for this season and, although later than normal, I will take this ass slimming as a positive sign.

I’ll leave you with another kind of cyclist’s butt, only because the choice was too hard after doing a Google search for the other.