Who You Calling Fat?

Bill Sornson wrote:
wrote:
No, weight is a characteristic of fitness and it is reasonable to
expect a person employed to report firsthand on a fitness activity,
which bicycling is, to have a pretty high level of physical fitness.

And yet in this same thread you wrote: "Just because someone is a good
cyclist doesn't mean they're not
overweight." CONTRADICTION!

No it's not. You're creating a false dichotomy. Someone can be a good
cyclist but not have a "pretty high level of physical fitness", if you
define a pretty high level of physical fitness as not being overweight,
which I think is not unreasonable. Fitness is not a single dimension
attribute that is determined by whether they are able to ride a bicycle
well. An example would be someone who was a pretty strong cyclist but
was overweight with diabetes and clogged arteries and about to have a
heart attack. Obviously, there would be a range of condition that a
person could have between this extreme and that of "a pretty high level
of physical fitness".

In article .com,
wrote:

Bill Sornson wrote:
wrote:
No, weight is a characteristic of fitness and it is reasonable to
expect a person employed to report firsthand on a fitness activity,
which bicycling is, to have a pretty high level of physical fitness.

And yet in this same thread you wrote: "Just because someone is a good
cyclist doesn't mean they're not
overweight." CONTRADICTION!

No it's not. You're creating a false dichotomy. Someone can be a good
cyclist but not have a "pretty high level of physical fitness", if you
define a pretty high level of physical fitness as not being overweight,
which I think is not unreasonable. Fitness is not a single dimension
attribute that is determined by whether they are able to ride a bicycle
well. An example would be someone who was a pretty strong cyclist but
was overweight with diabetes and clogged arteries and about to have a
heart attack. Obviously, there would be a range of condition that a
person could have between this extreme and that of "a pretty high level
of physical fitness".

I am not sure who I am agreeing with here, but I would readily agree
there are no pro-level cyclists who could be described as out of shape
(if anything, they tend towards unhealthy levels of leanness, necessary
for peak performance in the sport). That said, I am a pretty good
cyclist (Cat 4 and I'm doing very well these days) and I am also heavier
than I should be (low 150s and 5'6"; this is at the high end of what the
weight charts say is reasonable).

Regarding weight, I would say that being the editor of a cycling buff
book would require that the editor be a capable, but hardly elite
cyclist. I would expect him to be able to ride any number of mainline
cycling events with ease (Seattle-to-Portland with six month's warning,
yes; RAAM, no, not even in the team category). I would expect him to be
competent enough to line up at a categorized mass-start road race, and
not make a fool of himself, though I wouldn't require him to win.

It's rather like being the editor of a car magazine: I would expect such
a person to know the car industry, and know his way around a racetrack,
but only to the extent that any amateur with an interest and a certain
amount of practice could achieve. It's important the editor understand
dynamics and be able to articulate that understanding in writing, but
it's not important that he be able to put the car on the pole.

Actually, I'd go so far as to say I'd rather have an editor who didn't
ride bikes at all, but who did have an expert understanding of the
subject and the ability to express it in writing.

Note that the Editor is rarely the only staffer, either. Car & Driver,
for example, has a fleet of editorial staffers, ranging from former auto
engineers to literate car-fans to the guy who invented the Cannonball
Run to a guy who qualified for the Indy 500 twice. Thus the editor need
not be all possible creatures.

I would also argue that "fitness" and "health" are somewhat separable
concepts. One can't really be at opposite extremes, inasmuch as a
certain level of fitness is necessary for ideal health, and good health
is practically a necessary condition for high fitness, but one could
readily describe a fit athlete as having health problems, perhaps high
blood pressure, diabetes, or asthma. Similarly, one could be not very
fit but have generally good health: this is the realm of the largely
sedentary but otherwise healthy individual, many of whom look on the
feats of athletes in awe.

What do I think it means that the editor of Bicycling weighs more than
he should? I think it might mean he's spending too much time at the
office .

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos

On Sat, 30 Jul 2005 04:34:39 GMT, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

What do I think it means that the editor of Bicycling weighs more than
he should? I think it might mean he's spending too much time at the
office .

Of course he is. He's the EDITOR. He doesn't get to play with all the toys
and write reviews about them, that's his subordinates. All an editor does
is *edit* the magazine.

Jasper