So how do you tell your wife (a non tri person) that you are contemplating shaving your legs for an Ironman?
“Just do It”
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I agree with Harry. Besides, shaved legs has to be the world’s biggest secret that women have been keeping from men. Despite the pain in the ass it is to shave the feeling is mindblowing. She’ll thank you for it…as long as you keep shaving.
Tell her that in preperation you are going to be riding XXX miles a week and should you be unlucky and crash, any leg rashes/abrasions will heal much faster without all that hair in the way. Get a big poster of Lance Armstrong and put it up in the garage, when she is around comment on how he shaves his legs and ponder out loud “I wonder why he does that?”
I have to agree with the “world’s biggest secret” part. It’s not something I’d share with my friends, but it feels damn nice. That said, I haven’t shaved since the fall.
My advice would be definitely not to tell her in advance.
She might dig it laying in bed (mine does, sort of), but she will definitely hate it in bed if you don’t shave regularly once you start. Mostly I think she just thought I was strange, and the less said about it the better.
I shaved mine for the first time in July for a race and then did a real nice power slide in a corner at 50 km/h in another race in August. Fortunately I am not real hairy to begin with combined with the shaving made for a somewhat better post crash experience. I now plan on shaving all of the time (never did before) and have to agree it does feel kinda neat. My wife who I have pushed in to Tri thought it was Ok, especially in bed… She also appreciated the lack of hair as she helped with dressing changes for the next 2 weeks. Trust me if you have to get down there with a brush and Betadine (sp?) to scrub large patches of raw skin clean you WILL appreciate not having hair on top of all that.
Ask her to do it for you
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Forget the pic of Lance. Get hold of a pic of Keirin Doe from NZ! he’s a local pro triathlete I think. He has short funky dreadlocks and wears a bandana and no shirt when he runs in my neighbourhood. withhis shaved legs (point of this thread) and his awesone 6 pack abs, my wife (who generally dispises me and all other self absorbed triathletes) openly covets this guy. He is real stud material.
Once your wife sees Keirin’s picture she will help you do you legs for you!
TriDork
Ditto, have her do it. It will be bonding time.
jaretj
I haven’t had hair on my legs since I was 18, and I’m 42. When I see a guy with hair on his legs I think, “Dude, that’s nasty.”
I’ve never had a problem with a girlfriend not actually liking it. If they didn;t care for it, they were kind enough to not mention it. There were a few I can remember who did definately like it- at least they said they did.
yeah, but tom…when you give advice on relationships…i have to stop and wonder how much validity it has? 
haha, just jokes…
i dont think many women have a problem with it…and 2 pairs of shaved legs do feel great in bed together!
Well said, Tom. I feel the same way when I see a guy with lots o’ hair on his legs at the gym or on a bike. After all, nothing feels better on a fast club ride or race than freshly shaved legs. You just feel faster. I think it’s because without the hair you don’t get the sensation of how fast your going, so you push harder. I know whenever I let mine grow back, it feels weird and slow. Like I was plowing through the air with a blanket wrapped around my legs. Probably all in the mind, but hey, sometimes the mind is the edge you need. And besides, once you shave and she see all the cuts in your legs she’ll probably never go back to having hair on them.
Shave it off now. She’ll get over it. And if she deosn’t, it’s hair. It’ll grow back.
Tell her it makes the wetsuit slip off your legs MUCH easier and you will save valuable ‘minutes’ (this IS true… ever tried taking a wetsuit off with hairy legs… NOT easy!). Now you can add all the cycling “theories” after this one… What ever you don’t mention the word massage
just do it, she will like it. i am very hairy, my friends call me sasquatch. i shaved my legs last year for the first time and at first my wife thought I was weird, but she and her friends ended up liking it. The only problem is that after three to four days the legs get stubly and she complains. I let it grow back after IMOO, but plan to shave again when we get out of the deep freeze and I could start riding outside.
Maybe she won’t even notice. My wife didn’t.
Shaving sounds all well and good, but what do you do if you are a hairy man like ejs the sasquatch? Doesn’t it look a little funny having bare legs and then ‘hair shorts’ above the bike short line? Or if you have a hairy upper body, and bare legs? Where do you stop shaving? How often do you need to do it?
The bottom line is that there are three reasons to shave - (1) psychological (you ‘feel’ faster); (2) vanity (you want to fit in with the roadies, or it feels good in bed); (3) it is easier to clean cuts/scrapes/road rash (though how often are us ‘non-drafting’ triathletes really crashing, if we are not doing massive group rides?). None of these has a material impact on performance, as far as I can tell - there is little benefit to bare legs in aerodynamics for most athletes (David Millar being an exception?).
So why do it? It feels pretty good passing some bare legs during the bike leg and hearing, “What the ha? What is with the mountain biker?”
Triguy
Good Lord, I have to say that “male body shaving” has to be one of the most feminine things men do (SOME men do). I realize I seem to be in the minority here, but do we have to head in the direction of unisex grooming?
Shaving chest, shaving legs, wearing panty hose (another great secret women have been “hiding”?), etc. I don’t like the direction men are heading. Soon there will be no difference between the genders (except reproductive structure), and people seem to welcome that.
Why do men want to look like they’re 12? I really don’t get this male shaving thing. I understand grooming, as if you are overly hairy and you want to keep it trimmed down … but to shave it completely off … I just don’t get it.
I was born in the 70s, and maybe I should have been born in the 50s, b/c I’m not identifying with the “21st century man”.
Shaving your legs in case of a bike accident is like shaving your head b/c an errantly thrown piece of chewing gum might hit you. Just say “I like it” (as others have done) and enjoy it. It probably doesn’t even matter than guys like me don’t understand it and basically opposse it. But, don’t put it on “racing”. If you want to shave your legs, then just be honest and say so.
Somebody posted a pic of Hunter So-n-So wearing a “man sports bra” (like there’s such thing) and some low cut speedos. It’s killing me to think that this is the direction that “men” are heading.
Please tell me I’m not alone by thinking it’s good for an ADULT male to have body hair. I can’t really remember being 11 and thinking “Man, the wind sure does feel good on my unhairy legs” or anything like that. I also remember leg scrapes being hard to heal with or without hair (I used to race BMX in grade school).
I’m feeling out of touch and bewildered.
Triguy, Good summary on the hairy leg thing – I think you’ve nailed it. Conversely it feels pretty good to pass mountain bikers when you’ve got a tri-smooth leg look.
I have a friend who is a bushy guy who just shaves for big triathlons; what he does to avoid what he calls the “fuzzy q-tip look” (hair on your feet and upper body) is to do an all-over shave with an electric hair trimmer (well, maybe not 100% all-over but that’s a whole new thread and way too much information). The guy is a Marine so he even does his skull. Nice even look and with the hair trimmer it doesn’t take too long at all.
The best trick for stuck chewing gum is an ice cube. Freeze the gum until good and hard it just falls off on it’s own… had a nasty fall off my bike once under a restaurant table without a helmet on stood up too quick and BOOM… As far road rash it’s not an absolute but it sure does make it cleaner and therefore simpler to deal with especially after when your dressings are plastered and stuck on. As to trikini’s, mens sport bra’s, body shaving, DITTO!! But I still think it feels cool to have bare legs for whatever the reason.
North america is one of the few places on the planet that women shave their legs. So to say it is feminine is more societal than sexual.