Bicycle Attire Part 1 - Helmets

After years of steadfastly refusing to alter my everyday clothing for the sake of transport, I have recently decided to embrace specialised cycling apparel. The reasons for this include convenience and comfort; Sydney can be hot and humid, and sweat-drenched denim is an effective way to experience chafing and fungal skin infections.

A brief inspection of the clothing available at bike stores prompts the question, must all aesthetic considerations be put aside for convenience and comfort? For cycling is a world with it own stylistic palette, which can be generally characterised as brand names splashed across ghastly shades of skintight lycra. In cycling, this dickbag is considered a style icon:

Mario Cipollini is a champion arse-piece

In this and the following posts I will look at the question of whether it is possible to wear clothing designed for cycling, while observing basic standards of taste and decency.

Helmets

It is a legal necessity for cyclists to wear helmets in Australia. I'm undecided if this should be taken out of the realm of personal choice, but ever since my helmet left a dent in the bonnet of a car that ran into me, I have had no problem with wearing one. I used to wear a skateboard helmet on my bike, but this unventilated lump of heavy black plastic would get so hot beneath the Australian sun that I would come over all dizzy, so I decided to buy a proper bike helmet.

Most bicycle helmets resemble dreadlocks cast in lurid plastic. Here is a typical array of helmets from an online bike shop:

There is little variation to be found in this design approach, and not only are they uniformly shit to look at, they offer little beyond basic functionality. I live in the Inner West of Sydney, which means that I ride to work with the morning sun rising in my eyes, and ride home into the glare of the setting sun. It would hence be useful to have some kind of visor on a helmet, and also channels to accommodate the legs of sunglasses so that they don't get pressed into one's head (this is sore). Bern is the only manufacturer I found that offer these features, but they are not available in Australia.

Lazer produce these helmets with a substantial visor and nice fabric finish, but my choice was limited to darker hues. I wanted something with a lighter colour after the cooking my brain had received inside a black helmet. And frankly, they look a bit pony, and I don't want to look like I'm on my way to the gymkhana.

I went instead for a helmet made by Capix, which has fussy ridges and branding, but is about as inoffensive a helmet as I could find. It has a visor which is too small to be effective when the sun is low in the sky. The fit is reasonable, although it tends to move around a bit, and I often find myself tightening the chin-strap. But overall it's a massive improvement on the skateboard helmet I was using. It's also a fine home for the Porco Rosso sticker I picked up in Tokyo.

This Comic Is Superior

Superior is a superhero comic. It tells the story of Simon, a 12-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, who is visited in the night by a monkey in a space suit. The monkey's name is Ormon. Ormon grants a magic wish, and Simon is transformed into Superior, a superhero from the comics and movies of Simon's world. Superior is an analogue for Superman - he flies, has lazer and x-ray vision, superhuman strength, lantern-jawed good looks and impeccable moral fortitude. Simon brings Superior's superpowers out of the realm of fiction and into the reality of his world, but of course there is a catch to that magic wish. I won't go any further with the plot synopsis for fear of spoilers.

This comic will not be on the Booker shortlist. It will not be reviewed by Zadie Smith in The Guardian. It is not a graphic novel. It is a comic; more, it's a superhero comic, but it's no less valid a work of art. It is the culmination of an art-form that's been ongoing since Superman was created in 1938, and includes all the tropes we expect from this genre - the genesis story and the explosion of the new hero into the public sphere with the hot newshound on his heels, the hidden identity and confidant, the question of personal sacrifice for the greater good, the climactic battle among shattered inner-city office towers -all these are here, but Millar uses this grammar to tell a fresh story full of pathos, with themes of the nature of evil and faith, friendship and suffering. It is also fun.

I try to read everything by Mark Millar. Kick Ass 2 is being released as a comic book series at the moment (the next issue will be the finale), and it is funny as hell. Red Mist now calls himself The Motherfucker and is backed up by a supervillain team called The Toxic Mega-Cunts. And it's serious. Both Kick Ass and Superior ask questions about superheroism itself. Superheroism is perhaps a silly, preposterous idea, but it seems to resonate so strongly. Whay do we want superheroes? Why do we want to be superheroes? Why is the world divided into people who would choose invisibility and people who would choose the power of flight? What is up with those people who want to be invisible? What the hell? Flying is obviously more awesome.

Millar's plotting and writing is consistently enthralling. He has a freewheeling style that feels improvised and off-the-cuff - every plot turn feels like you're stepping onto an untrodden path. It's exciting, there's something ramshackle about it, which makes it feel all the more satisfying when he pulls everything back into sweet resolution.

Leinil Yu's art is brilliant as well. He's a Filipino fellow, so the comic is a Filo-Scot mashup, a bit like my marriage. And he's also outstanding at drawing tits, which does not hurt at all.

Superior is a miniseries and it is now available collected in a hardcover edition.

Leinil Yu - Master of Norks