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Shaving Your Legs by Jobst Brandt
Original article: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/shaving.html on sheldonbrown.com
- Reproduced with the permission of John Allen and Harriet Fell — all rights reserved. The version on sheldonbrown.com is authoritative.
- Mirrored: 2026-10-10 · Last update of the original: see original
Subject: Shaving Your Legs
From: Jobst Brandt
Why do bicyclists shave their legs? This question arises regularly, although sometimes it's a troll, sometimes it's a rider who didn't dare ask his shaven riding companions. Had he done so, among the real answers, he would probably have gotten:
- To prevent infection when crashing.
- To pull off bandages more painlessly after dressing a wound.
- To get a massage of the legs without hair pulling.
- To be more streamlined in the wind.
- etc
Hair does not cause infections and if it is a gash that goes deeper than the typical raspberry, there will be more dirt in it than a few hairs. In any case, where a wound needs stitches the skin will be shaved around the opening anyway, for the reason that hair inclusions are as bad as dirt inclusions.
Don't put tape on a hairy leg or arm. Shave it first. Every medic kit should have a Bic razor or better anyway.
Many folks with hair get massages and it has no effect on comfort. You'd think from this excuse, that those who shave get massages regularly and that massage parlors always shave their customers. Neither is true.
If this is a streamlining increment, then the rider should first get a tight fitting Lycra jersey and shoe covers.
The other excuses are just that. Bicycle athletes shave for the same reason body builders and women do it. Shaving exposes the sculptured lines of muscle definition (defo) or the absence of it for some women, and some of the best legs are on bikies. Not only that, embrocation, (oiling up with exotic smelling greases or oils, the same as in body building and weight lifting) emphasizes defo. If the soigneur tells the rider that this will improve performance, he'll accept that gladly.
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