"He's a pretty serious mountain biker. The bike is a carbon-fibre Trek, with Rock Shox front forks. Not totally top-end, but you get an awful lot of bike for $3,000 these days. He's wearing Sidi off-road shoes - $200 items designed for competition: light, stiff, with ski-binding-style cleats. Admittedly, the president's jacket and shorts are bulky and baggy, compared with the Chinese cyclists' more professional all-in-one Lycra suits. But, in fact, his style is mainstream for off-roaders - and, arguably, Bush wins brownie points for not wearing those wussy tights the Chinese team have on. Even the President of the United States must sometimes have to stand bare-legged. The helmet is generic but late-model; the full-finger gloves are purpose-made; and the eyewear is sophisticated with lenses that enhance vision in low-light conditions. But the real give-away here is that his wristwatch is not a watch at all - it's a heartrate monitor (HRM). Now that's a real bike nut's piece of kit.
What this means is that when Bush was packing his bags to go to China, he wasn't thinking about trade or Tibet. He was thinking: Jeez, three days without a workout ... you know what, I'm going to take my bike - better take the HRM, too. Last year, a journalist from Associated Press joined the president on a lap of his Crawford ranch. Bush's heart rate, Scott Lindlaw reported, peaked at 168 beats per minute during the 18-mile loop. For a man of his age (59), that's likely to be about 95% of his maximum - which is the sort of intensity only elite athletes train at. According to AP, Bush completed the ride in an hour and 20 minutes. That's more than 13mph, which may not sound all that fast, but for an off-road cyclist, believe me, it's shifting. His resting pulse - a good rule-of-thumb indicator of fitness - is down in the 40s. On this form, Bush could not only hold his own in age-related cross-country races, he'd win some."
I just wish that he would put the same degree of effort into the day job. And is there not something slightly sad, even fetishistic, about a 59 year-old going to these lengths to remain an "athlete"?
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