Watch the pro teams line up for a pre-stage presentation at the Tour de France and you’ll see few hairs on display from the waist down. Pros and most road cyclists shave their legs, at least during the shorts season, but why go to the bother?
There are a couple of straightforward answers and some more involved ones.
On a simple level, cyclists – or at least road cyclists – have always shaved their legs. It’s a rite of passage to show that you’re a ‘serious’ roadie to get rid of your leg fluff, as much as riding with clipless pedals. There's certainly an amount of this that is 'pro cycling cosplay' though; pros do it, so I will too.
It probably also looks better to see a row of cyclists at the start line with smooth, brown legs than hairy legs too, particularly alongside the skin-tight clothing that’s another signal that you’re serious about your riding. Smooth legs might help with heat dissipation too.
Beyond that, pro riders have a massage after every stage to relax their leg muscles, reduce soreness, speed up removal of waste products and increase the speed of recovery, ready for the next day’s racing.
A massage is much more comfortable for a rider with smooth legs than hairy ones and there’s less mess from the creams and oils used if there are no hairs for it to get stuck in. It’s better for the masseurs too; it's been said that massaging hairy legs is like massaging a cactus.
Then there are the crashes. It’s easier to clean a wound if there aren’t hairs in the way. If your legs are bandaged after a crash, it’s less uncomfortable to change dressings if they are not pulling hairs from your legs as they are removed. It should be easier to apply creams and other medications to promote healing and there should be less chance of infection.
And we all know how uncomfortable scabs can be as they start to flake off if they have hairs and grit stuck in them.
More aero too
These are all classic reasons why cyclists shave their legs, which have been given for generations. But with the increasing obsession with aerodynamics, another reason for cyclists to shave their legs has come to the fore: it’s more aero.
Back in 2014, Specialized put six particularly hairy legged cyclists in its wind tunnel, measured the drag, then shaved their legs and repeated the runs. Its results suggested that there was a time saving over 40km of up to 82 seconds from shaving their legs and an average of 70 seconds. That’s around ten times the time saving of just 28 seconds over 100km Specialized claims for an upgrade from the Tarmac SL8 to the latest Tarmac SL9.
That number sounds enormous and has drawn scepticism, but others have repeated the test, with similar results, although we’ve yet to try it ourselves. For example, this video from 2024 found a 13 watt advantage for a triathlete when he shaved his legs and arms.
But shaving your legs completely may not be as aero as shaving a pattern into your leg hair. The late Mike Burrows of Lotus bike and Giant TCR fame suggested that a mohican stripe of leg hair just ahead of your legs’ widest point might create a trip layer and make your legs faster still.
And back in 2018, Lotto-Soudal riders smeared ‘speed gel’ on their legs for the Critérium du Dauphiné time trial. This was claimed to disrupt the airflow and create a boundary layer, lowering drag. The team came third in the time trial and speed gel was promptly banned by the UCI.
Some cyclists go further and shave their arms. When Specialized tested this in 2014, it found the gains were around a quarter of those from shaved legs, so it might be worth keeping the razor out for a little longer and finishing the job.
