Shaving Legs for Cycling
1. Esthetic
Yes, it does look good and esthetic when a cyclist in cycling bibs and jersey has shaved legs.
You can see whole pro peloton doing it and anyone not doing it would be a big faux pas. Cycling culture is kind of big deal about style, especially road cyclist. What you wear and how you look, shaving legs is a big part of it.
2. Speed
It is proven that you can be faster just by shaving legs (watch the video below).
The 50 sec. - 82 sec. gain over 40-kilometers distance. Share on X
Is that a lot? If we assume that a 40 km time trial takes 60 minutes it will be 2.2% gain just by shaving legs! It is totally worth it, and 82s can be even the difference between first and 20th cyclists on the finish line.
3. Massages
A lot of cyclists and athletes using massages once a month or once a week, professional cyclists use it every day during stage races. Massages improve your blood flow, reducing lactate and improving your recovery. Massage can be very painful or even impossible with hairy legs. Shaved legs help with using massage oils as well as warming up creams before workouts, races.
4. Crashes
Did you ever crash during race or group ride? We don’t have a lot to cover our bodies, super-light materials of jerseys and bibs are not good protection against asphalt or gravel. Abrasions can be very painful and need to be clean up as soon as possible, shaved legs can make it a lot easier. Legs without hairs heal faster too.
5. It means you care
Something that can’t be really measured, but we always take a psychological aspect of training and some “weaker” cyclists can have a better result
Why?
Because they do care about marginal gains, shave legs can give you 2.2% putting it together with other things like little lighter bike part, more aerodynamic position on your bike, loosing 1 kg fat and following your training plan can give you great benefits.
