Everyone was surprised by the result, not least Dr Postma himself: “To my initial surprise, I found a positive relationship between the two and it was actually quite strong… If we took the 10% best riders and compared their performance to the 10% worst, we found the best were on average 25% more attractive than the worst ones… We don’t know what people are picking up in the faces that is signalling the riders’ performance”.
Another factor that could have been involved is whether the riders were smiling in the photos, but Dr Postma preempted that one. He found that those who were smiling were rated as more ‘likable’ but not more attractive so that’s not that answer either.
Although the scientists don’t yet know how these woman are doing this amazing feat of facial fitness prediction, one thing they did notice is that in women taking the contraceptive pill the effect was gone. It’s been shown in the past that women on the pill, for some reason, have a reduced preference for masculine looking men. But that doesn’t answer the question of how these witches are doing their black magic voodoo shizzle?
However the fairer sex are managing this feat of performance prediction, I’ve taken a couple of life lessons from this research: firstly, from now on, I’m taking my female friends to the betting shop to rate all of the cyclists in the Tour de France before picking my bet. Second: this has taught me that I need to fix my bike, get some lycra and start riding. ASAP.
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