Our conversation about gram weenies, those ultralight backpackers who go to extremes to shave off every last bit of excess weight in their gear, prompts a bicyclist in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to share some cycling slang about ways to find a competitive edge. A weight weenie is a cyclist concerned about ensuring that their wheels and other bike components are the lightest weight possible. Another term, sticky bottle, refers to the way that during a race, a support team pulling up alongside a biker to hand off a water bottle will hang onto the bottle slightly longer than needed, allowing the biker to briefly hitch a ride. The expression magic spanner involves a similarly shady strategy—handing the biker a wrench from the support car but holding on a little longer than necessary, helping to pull the biker along for a few seconds. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of ““Sticky Bottle” and “Magic Spanner” Mean Sneaky Help in Bicycle Racing”
Do you remember our conversation about gram weenies?
Yeah, these are people who minimize the amount of weight that they’re carrying when they’re hiking.
Yes, yes, ultralights and hikers.
So like trim the edges of their pill packets and things like that.
Yes, yes, gram weenies.
That prompted an email from Mark Hastings, who lives in Philadelphia, and he’s a bicyclist.
And he said that bicyclists talk about weight weenies, which is sort of the same thing.
They’re always trying to figure out how to make their bicycles lighter.
The main way to do that is to somehow make your wheels lighter.
And so you can find whole discussion boards talking about being a weight weenie.
But the other cool terms that he shared with me, which I found really fascinating, were sticky bottle.
Do you know the term sticky bottle in bicycle racing?
I don’t. What is that?
You’re not supposed to do this, but when a crew will be riding alongside its bicyclists,
They can reach out from the car and work on the bike or help them a little bit.
Oh, yeah, while you’re still in motion.
Yeah, so here they are driving along next to the bicyclist, and they’ll hand off, say, a water bottle.
But they’ll take a while to hand off the water bottle.
Oh, so they’re holding him steady.
Yeah, well, they’ll pull him along.
Oh, that’s cheating.
Yeah, that’s called a sticky bottle.
And there’s also something called a magic spanner,
A spanner being a wrench that you would use to make a little adjustment.
You can take your time making an adjustment as the bicyclist is moving along
And just kind of help them along.
You’re not supposed to do this, but sticky bottle and magic spanner.
And I thought it was all about drugs and blood packing.
Right.
There are other ways.
Well, we know there’s lingo inside the hobbies that you have
And the pastimes that you do, 877-929-9673.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
