Macho or masochistic? At what point does proving your toughness get too much?

Sports psychologist Dr Josephine Perry takes aim at cycling's macho myths

(Getty)

(Image credit: Flickr Vision)

Rapha recently produced a drinks bottle printed with the slogan “a slice of watermelon” on one side, and on the other: “To achieve race weight, Marco Pantani would, according to legend, ride for six hours on nothing more than water, returning home to just a slice of watermelon.” 

Just water indeed – in hot water was where Rapha ended up. Anyone who has read biographies of Pantini knows it wasn’t fruit that fuelled his performances, but illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Even so, the myths of the heroic, self-denying cycling purist perpetuate – and are potentially extremely harmful. They encourage us to idolise an unattainable ideal of macho hardness, and to respond to every difficulty with ‘man-up’ or the crasser shorthand HTFU, cherishing terms like “suffering” and “pain cave”.

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