Do Cyclists Shave Their Arms?
If you’re into cycling, then you’ll find tons of professionals and average cyclists shaving their arms and legs. In this article, we’ll focus only on shaving your arms.
Even when tons of professionals shave their arms, there are a lot who don’t. This is only natural to make you question the viability and necessity of shaving your arms. Do shaving your arms offer any extra facility?
Let’s find out!
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Do Cyclists Shave Their Arms?
Yes, cyclists shave their arms to get them every possible edge over the competition.
While it might sound a bit weird to new cyclists, but shaving your arms is highly recommended for a better cycling experience by professional cyclists. There are several advantages to shaving your arms for cycling from better aerodynamics drag to safety issues.
Perks of Shaving Your Arms as A Cyclist
There are multiple factors to consider while pondering if you should shave your arms as a cyclist or not. In this section, we’ll be discussing all the different factors that’ll be affecting you for shaving your arms.
Related reading: How To Trim Leg Hair For Cycling?
Aerodynamics Drag
The first and foremost thing that you’d need to consider is the aerodynamics drag. It’s found that while cycling at a high speed, the cyclist himself experiences 75% of aerodynamics drag, while the bicycle accounts for 25% of the drag.
The bike accounts for a lower aerodynamics drag mainly because of its structure. However, that’s not the only reason. You’ll also find that the body of a cycle is much smoother than the body of a biker. This is why making the body of the rider smoother will decrease the aerodynamics drag to a great extent.
One of the best ways of reducing the aerodynamics drag off of the rider is by shaving the body hair. The body hair increases the roughness of the skin, which in turn increases the friction against the wind. So, shaving your legs and arms can decrease that friction and can enable you to ride faster than usual.
This is one of the major reasons why you should shave your arms as a biker.
Specialized researchers Cameron Piper and Chris Yu found out through extensive research that shaving arms can make you 19 seconds faster over a ride of 25 miles. Although this is increase is highly dependent on several factors, it’s evident that shaving arms can provide a reasonable boost. Although 19 seconds may feel like a marginal boost, it can actually make you a winner in a sticky situation. Plus, there’s isn’t much that you’re giving away either.
Cooling System
Irrespective of whether it’s a warm or a cool day, you’ll be heating up considerably while cycling. While warming up is essential for cycling as it can allow you to stretch your muscles better and will help you push yourself to your limits, it’s not recommended to overheat as that can dehydrate you faster and will leave you tired easily.
Human beings mainly cool off through sweating. We sweat through certain glands on our skin, and it evaporates to give us a cool feeling that makes us feel better.
However, hair tends to retain water and salt, so it makes it tough for sweat to evaporate. As excess hair can make it tougher for you to sweat, it’ll take you more time to cool off as well. This is how your cooling system is directly linked to the body hair. The lesser body hair you have, the faster you’ll be able to cool off. This is why we highly recommend shaving your arms.
Related reading: Best Electric Shaver For Cyclist
Massage
A massage can always make you feel better both before and after a ride. With all the hair removed from your arms, there will be less tugging, and you won’t feel any pain. However, if there’s hair on you, the massage may feel painful.
This is another reason why you should be shaving your arms.
Bandaging
This is a major reason why you would want to shave your arms as a biker. As a biker, you should only expect that you’ll experience crashes and injuries. If you ever get injured, you’ll have to tape or bandage the wound so that it heals better and doesn’t lead to more problems.
However, if you have body hair, it’ll be tough for you to apply to take or bandage on your skin because the process of taking the tape off will become painful. In fact, most healthcare professionals recommend shaving your arm before applying bandages. However, if it’s a severe injury, then it won’t be possible for them to shave before applying the tape.
So, it’d be better if you were shaved before the ride, which would make things much simpler and easier.
Vanity
Last, but not least, a shaved arm can make you look much better than usual. Hair tends to cast shadows on your skin. This ends up blurring the edges of your muscles. So, if you want to be a showoff, you better shave your arms.
Conclusion
As you can see, shaving your arms can provide more than one benefit. So, if you’re a biker and if you’re wanting to be competitive, then you should definitely shave your arms. Then again, shaving your arms shouldn’t be for professionals only. If you’re willing to bring the best out of yourself and want to have the best experience, then you should shave your arms.
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