Bike in a speedo

[Torchwatch]

In Britain Raleigh built bicycles, they bought the Carton Cycle company that built high end racing bikes and created the bike that won the race across America. In celebration of this bike the Raleigh Record Sprint bike was built and marketed. A Carlton bike in Raleigh colours it was lightweight and fast, I bought my brother a 2nd hand one a couple of years ago in an almost unused condition, it gets looks from real racing cyclists when he rides it and it leaves my racer behind.

Later Raleigh sponsored the Raleigh Banana Team, it won things and they brought out the Raleigh Banana bike marketing it at youths. It was a high tensile steal lump with a nice paint job. If you bought one and went to a bike club you got left behind and laughed at.

This and Raleigh's inability to build a decent mountain bike effectively killed the company.

The sharkskin fabrics that top swimmers wear are faster than naked smooth skin in water, if you wear sharkskin jammers you go faster than in speedos. Most young club swimmers train and race in Lycra jammers, the fabric is slower than smooth naked skin and so Lycra jammer wearers will go slower than speedos wearers. The racing swimwear companies want to sell expensive sharkskin jammers to serious racing swimmers and look alike Lycra jammers to young swimmers in training.

Boys and men are confused, they can't afford sharkskin for training or leisure swimming, fashionable long shorts are rubbish to swim in, short shorts, speedos and jammers all look a bit "gay" and are best avoided. The result is that men and boys simply don't go swimming and the public pools are full of older women doing lengths of bad breaststroke wearing drab black one piece suits.

I've worn cycle padded squarecuts on a mountain bike for short distances, it's kind of exhilarating compared to normal Lycra cycle shorts. I guess that wearing speedos and a cropped top would make you look like a triathlete.