the complete opposite with a pair of 10 buck clippers from Big W. This is not the time or place to go into a sociological study about how being bald can also somehow make you tough, but it does raise the interesting question about the greatest half bald cyclist….
The only criteria is that they must be people who were still battling on gamely against the odds, believing that no one had noticed their rapidly receding locks. There is a chance that they were just half bald and proud. If this is the case they should be saluted as the genuine hard men that they were, but I personally have a huge believe in the power of denial.
OK, the first cab off the rank is the great Joop Zoetemelk, tour winner, world champ and genuinely classy rider who is somehow underrated when compared to his contemporaries. He was a classic daggy dad style and seemed to be half bald from the time he burst onto the scene. Marco Pantani started to fancy himself as a hard man after he became successful, but for me its his carerra days that will always be remembered – half bald and riding in mock stretch denim knicks is a look unlikely to be repeated. That is off course unless someone from the local bunch really wants to freak out the punters early one Sunday morning.
But the winner is of course Barne Riis. It is incorrectly assumed that his nickname, Mr. 60%, related to his heamatacrit level, when in fact it was his scalp to hair ratio. 60% scalp. While Ivan Basso is clearly on the decline hair wise, his manscaping and compulsory helmets will undoubtedly mean that we will never again see the likes of Bjarne’s sweating bonce bouncing up the Alps.
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