Cycling has long had some luxuriously coiffed riders – Mario Cipollini, Vladimir Karpets, the Laurents Brochard et Fignon, and Chris Horner (erm … you sure about that last one? – Ed). Unhappily for them, they weren’t riding in the era of the Hair Throw – but Peter Sagan is, and we reckon he’s just proved himself a world champion at it.
The Slovak was, without a shadow of a doubt, the star attraction at last month’s Tour Down Under, and with big crowds following him wherever he went you could be forgiven for thinking he was a rock star, not a cyclist.
But with a bit of help from his Bora-Hansgrohe team mate Jay McCarthy, Laura Fletcher from Girona-based website The Peloton Brief manged to grab the biggest name in cycling to be the latest victim – sorry, participant – in her Hair Throw video series.
So, how does it work? Easy. Find a rider whose barnet borders on the bouffantesque, make sure the camera’s rolling, and ask them to throw their mane back. Then upload to YouTube in glorious slo-mo for the world to see.
Previously featured in the series have been BMC Racing’s Daniel Oss, and Dimension Data’s Tyler Farrar. Hopefully ex-Team Sky sprinter Davide Appollonio won’t have had a rug rethink should he return to the sport after his EPO ban expires this summer.
We asked Laura how she came up with the concept.
She told us: “The idea came probably in the shower or something similar. It's where the best ideas come. That or on the toilet.”
TMI, anyone?
She added: “There’s so much good hair in the peloton these days, it's a shame to not show it off.”
We totally agree, and we look forward to seeing more of the same.
In the meantime, check out The Peloton Brief website here, and follow the links there to its social media channels including Instagram and YouTube for much, much more.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.