By: Kaiko Shimura Nov 29, 04:09 PM |

“What up Dickheads 1 and 2?”

That was the usual greeting from a college friend as he sauntered down to my end of the dorm hallway. Originally friends with my two male next-door neighbors [the aforementioned “Dickheads 1 and 2”], the four of us became a close-knit team my junior year. They dragged me out to drink too much watery beer while I played wingman; when I inevitably passed out on frat house couches, they made sure I sobered up and protected me from general sketchiness.

It was an interesting dynamic. Despite all the typically masculine disdain for the frivolous behavior of other girls, I had won their respect. They even gave me a choice:

“Hey Kaiko, do you want to be Dickhead Number 4 or Dumb Slut Number 1?”

Awwwww. How sweet.

I’m not being totally sarcastic. When 99.8% of your friends are male, and you’re the only one without a scrotum, the “tag-along” label gets thrown around a lot. When you happen to be female and end up chest-deep in a sport where squeezing into Lycra suits to sweat for hours at a time are enough to weed out most things with breasts, “tag-along” is a status that you have to claw and fight your way out of. In the world of cycling, merely being female presents an automatic extra set of challenges. Even with a fairly confident smile paired with the slightly jaded air that nothing less than Campy Record or SRAM Red would be enough to really get me excited, it can be an uphill battle when I walk into an unfamiliar bike shop with a male friend.

As if cycling needed another reason to seem more homosexual, the eyes of shop employees pass over me and lock onto whatever male friend I’ve dragged into the shop. Testosterone-rich “male speak” then ensues [“Hey man, what can I do for you?” or “What’s up man?”] and I’m experiencing flashbacks to too many late nights in the gay district back home. Between the exchange of greetings that don’t include me, then the awkward re-direction of attention to why in fact, the two of us are there [read: me], I’m desperately looking for why exactly I’m getting the “tag-along” treatment.

Because like the recognition that the only thing missing from your perfectly interesting and entertaining conversation with the dashingly well-dressed, blush-triggeringly-hot man with the body that looks like it’s been chiseled out of marble is, well, any modicum of interest in anything without external reproductive organs, it’s not hard to tell when someone is absolutely not interested in bicycles. Even with the notoriously determined socially ineptness of bike mechanics, it’s difficult to miss the blank, zoned-out look of utter boredom. Girlfriends and true “tag-alongs” tend to shut down once they walk in the door. As Roger Sterling would put it, girls who know a thing or two about bicycles are usually the “only one[s] without that stupid look on [their] face[s].” Odds do tend the favor the safe choice of approaching the potential male customer as opposed to the female one. But taking risks always has its rewards; any shop that directs at least equal attention to me and a male friend will consistently get super extra bonus points from yours truly.

Still, that can be rare, and as a woman, it can be discouraging to say the least. But like the choice presented to me back in college, being the only woman around also means that repeatedly showing up at a shop can translate into respect and true friendships. Well…”respect and true friendships” as defined by a bunch of guys who – as we all know – will insist on acting at least 20 years younger than they really are. Which means, of course, that while I’ve graduated from “Dickhead Number 4,” I’m currently called things that I really shouldn’t be publishing on the Internet.

On the other hand, at least it’s not “Dumb Slut Number 1.”