Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Notsnot

It has come to my attention – painfully, I might add – that many civilians lack a thorough understanding of the beardsicle. Or, as my friend Rio likes to call it, the glacial facial.

I have often winced when people would see a fully developed beardsicle and refer to icy extensions of a mustache as “snotsicles.” I mean, seriously, do they think we ride around the woods lazily letting mucous pour  from our olfactory intakes? Most of us aren't that barbaric.


To comprehend the origin of the large icicles that form on a manly 'stache during winter rides, one must first understand the fundamentals of the beardsicle. You came to the right place, dear readers.


Whilst transporting oneself aboard a modern velocipede, physical exertion commonly results in a significant increase in exhalations from one’s mouth, containing a high content of moisture that rapidly cools as it passes through the air and freezes upon – or just prior to – contact with air-cooled surfaces such as hair and clothing.


As these frozen particles accumulate on cold surfaces, layers of frost are formed, thereby turning facial hair white in a fashion that has, on occasion, been compared to the appearance of a small, humanoid creature that is sometimes rendered in a painted plaster form to decorate a lawn or garden.


Alas, warm exhalations from the nose routinely cause a thermodynamic change in frost crystals located directly above the rider’s upper lip, thereby converting a solid to a liquid that is forced by the laws of gravity to flow downward until such time as the flow of cold air once again forces the liquid to return to a solid form known as ice.


This process occurs continuously during physical activity, providing a steady flow of water that adds to the mass of icicles that hang like stalactites from the mustache.


In other words, what some refer to as a snotsicle is simply an icicle. It contains the same water and ice crystals as the rest of the frost that covers a rider’s face, chest and shoulders, and should not be mistaken as nasal mucous.


After all, fat-biking is a sport not of ill-mannered brutes, but of ladies and gentlemen.

5 comments:

Vito said...

I totally concur. A true "snotsicle" would have more color. Now, I am not barbaric, but at the same time I'm somewhat inept at "snot rockets" and therefore will develop a what could be considered a true "snotcicle".

Debbie said...

There is something about you, beyond just the beardcicle, that makes you more lawn gnome-ish than most.

Raymond Parker said...

These days I reside in the "Caribbean of Canada" where one hesitates to buy studded tires for the few days in a decade where they might be put to good use, but when I was a manly man of the north, I cultivated not only a beard of some considerable length, but a beadrsicle worthy of its decoration.

Shane Lapan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

It cannot be considered entirly hygenic; however, as referring to it as a halitosisycle would not be inaccurate.