Could I have a mild case of the swine flu? A couple of women suggested today, after seeing me in Lycra, that I may have picked something up at the trough, as in a few too many porky pounds. And I’m married to one of them. The women, not the pounds, though of course we are close, too.

In fairness, I think Herself was just waiting for someone else to bring the subject up so she could do a riff on it, like Miles Davis and John Coltrane trading licks. It’s not as though we both had managed to overlook the fact that my girth has begun to challenge the design limitations of even the most expandable of fossil-fuel garments. When you can get an echo out of a guy’s belly button, and his kit size sports more Xs than a Jenna Jameson flick, that guy is a great fat bastard.

Call me old school. Back in the day, racers who had denied themselves various guilty pleasures throughout the long racing season (with the exception of Sean Kelly) often plastered on a few kilos during the off-season, knowing that they would either have to train them off come springtime or have Captain Ahab hunting them with harpoons, and not just for laughs, either.

So show me a little daylight and I’ll ride right through it. And before you know it, I’ll make Andy Schleck look like the Michelin Man. They say the first ton is the hardest.

Meanwhile, here’s another fat honky for your amusement — Turkish, in the back yard, enjoying a brief gap between rainstorms.