I’ve no idea what the collective noun for a group of Mamils is, but given my experiences whilst cycling the highways & byways of the Netherlands over the past few weeks, a ‘swarm’ of Mamils might be just about right!
It seems to me that to qualify as a Mamil, one needs to be around 50, male, severely overweight, astride the most expensive racing bicycle that money can buy whilst clad in figure hugging, branded cycling attire, stretched to the absolute limits that Lycra technology allows.
It appears to be a particular point of honour if the belly of the proponent rests gently on the crossbar of the cycle as it wobbles down the road.
Google tells me that a Mamil is ‘Someone who rides an expensive racing bicycle for leisure, wearing endurance and performance enhancing body-hugging jerseys & shorts’.
What I’m talking about here are swarms of ‘Middle Aged Men In Lycra’, or the less common ‘Middle Aged Matrons In Lycra’ for the lady cyclists……yes, you’ve got it……MAMIL’S!
It occurs to me that if these cyclists rode their expensive racing bikes with any degree of enthusiasm over more than a handful of kilometers every weekend, the technology of their clothing & indeed, their cycles would not be so severely tested.
What about me, I hear you ask….?
Well, I fail to qualify as a Mamil on so many counts, not least because I’m well past middle-age, don’t ride an expensive racing cycle & last, but by no means least, don’t own a stitch of Lycra clothing…….preferring my loose joggies & baggy tee shirt to cunningly disguise my rapidly developing ‘Tour de France’ physique.
