Cycling is a great sport—unless you are participating in the Tour de France, in which case, it'll make your legs look like 'roided up deer legs on a bad day. On Tuesday, cyclist Pawel Poljanski posted an Instagram of his (ravaged) legs after 16 stages of the classic race. In the caption he wrote, "After sixteen stages I think my legs look little tired." OH, YOU THINK?
This unsettling but still really interesting and cool picture has now been picked up by several sports outlets, and some have explained the reason his legs look like veiny beef jerky.
It's a condition called enhanced vascularity. Dr. Bradley Launikonis from the University of Queensland's School of Biomedical Science told ABC News that elite cyclists have twice as much blood flow to their legs than do recreational bicyclists. He explaind that arteries carry blood quickly to the leg muscles that need oxygen, but due to the athlete pushing himself to his limits, the blood pools in the veins after being in the legs for a long time, making the veins overly visible. Cool! And also, gross!
This isn't particularly unusual for a cyclist after such an intense workout. In 2014, professional cyclist Chris Froome posted a picture of his legs. They look pretty similar, if slightly less sunburned.
And just about every year, a cyclist has to put up with accusations from the public about using steroids.
But performance enhancing drugs are not to blame.
Twitter basically could not handle seeing these pieces of human leather. Can you blame them?
Many GIFs were used to express various emotions, mainly being weirded out (but, like, in a good way).
It just goes to show how far the human body can be pushed, and all the amazing feats it can accomplish with serious training. The human body is a marvel of natural engineering—and also sometimes slightly disgusting.
