Faster cyclists are more attractive, study says

edds

Glad there are finally studies to prove what we already knew:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26034659

talius

Damn right.

Kieran_Burns

edds wrote:

Glad there are finally studies to prove what we already knew:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26034659

and that's relevant to anyone here, how?

roger_merriman

Um that's more power/money which is a attractive to a point.

Certainly for men, the shape road tends to shape one ie thin with little upper body build is not in it's self attractive, your mtber track etc guys tend to be heavier built which tics more box's.

veronese68

I'm not especially fast, but I did have to point out to one of my colleagues that I'm faster than him.

secretsam

Faster at what? Cycling or, err, other things?

I'm pug ugly either way, BTW

rolf_f

The problem with the way that the results have been reported by the BBC (which is probably hopelessly badly) is that they have lined up a collection of cyclists who are all extremely good. You are comparing very good with ever so slightly even better.

I'm more inclined to Rogers angle - the 'faster' cyclists do not look better for physical reasons - just that they are at the top of their profession and that probably shows. If I'd done this study, I would have also subsetted the 'slower' riders and then brought in a group of riders from the top of the second tier to compare them against. That way you may get an angle on what effect being top of division two rather than bottom of division one has.

fat_tail

EPO has facial enhancing effects as well ?

MrSweary

Ahh but did you know that attractive cyclists are also faster..?

ManiaMuse

SCR thread must be full of stunners.

majormantra

Seems to me that using stage race results is a rather flawed way of determining who is "faster" in any case. Granted, they said they compared TT performance as well (although it's not clear how they related the two), but the Tour isn't a test of who is the fastest cyclist, it's a test of who is best at winning the Tour. (Which is down to a great many variables.)

majormantra

Although in fairness, some of this is addressed in his methods section:

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 6supp1.pdf

roger_merriman

MajorMantra wrote:

Although in fairness, some of this is addressed in his methods section:

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... 6supp1.pdf

It's a narrow selection ie only riders in the TDF done with a web survey does rather sound in danger of being self selecting. Looks like rather poor science.

Healthy looking guys/gals I suspect would score rather better even if they would drop out of the TDF rapidly. As a whole TDF riders while there riding is impressive, they don't tend to look like fit healthy folks, unlike say chris hoy/Victoria P and so on.

rolf_f

roger merriman wrote:

As a whole TDF riders while there riding is impressive, they don't tend to look like fit healthy folks, unlike say chris hoy/Victoria P and so on.

It doesn't actually matter. As long as there is a consistency in the sample set then what counts is relatives rather than absoiutes 'Faster cyclists more attractive". The study could be repeated for track cyclists and it would be interesting if there was a difference but, the point is, is that the study is not about which type of cyclist across the board is the best looking.

MrSweary

ManiaMuse wrote:

SCR thread must be full of stunners.

Well, I wouldn't call myself a stunner - devilishly handsome, yes. 8)

LiveGiantly

ManiaMuse wrote:

SCR thread must be full of stunners.

why thank you 8)

BelgianBeerGeek

Faster = winner. Surely it is the fact that success is more attractive?

andyb78

Rolf F wrote:

The problem with the way that the results have been reported by the BBC (which is probably hopelessly badly) is that they have lined up a collection of cyclists who are all extremely good. You are comparing very good with ever so slightly even better.

I'm more inclined to Rogers angle - the 'faster' cyclists do not look better for physical reasons - just that they are at the top of their profession and that probably shows. If I'd done this study, I would have also subsetted the 'slower' riders and then brought in a group of riders from the top of the second tier to compare them against. That way you may get an angle on what effect being top of division two rather than bottom of division one has.

This - the results from such a limited sample are bobbins - they'll give you an idea of the perceptions of a group on a very small, elite group of people where the differentiation is tiny. Whilst the methodology might be "correct", what it actually tells us is very little.

kieranb

I think the study was conducted pretty well, if anything they handicapped themselves with restricting themselves to pros who did the tour, thus the difference between athletes is very small, yet they still found a large and significant effect.

goonz

Knew there was a reaon I was such a babe magnet.

Initialised

Most attractive = Best genes = Best performance

Makes sense if you're familiar with the "Good Genes" hypothesis of attractiveness as expressed in human faces.

Agent57

Great news!

Oh, wait... faster... Arse.