L y c r a m a n    the story behind the name Lycra is a trade mark of Du Pont, and like Elastan and Spandex, lycra is an artificial and very elastic fiber, mostly used in clothes. Ever since the invention of lycra, this fabulous material has seen a lot of use in the clothing industry, making the clothing more form-fitting and adaptable to the different body shapes. In combination with nylon, lycra was very soon used for pantyhoses, invisible or adding a tan to a pale skin color. In these days lycra was mostly used for underwear, and only a few dared to show off their assets in lycra wear. This came to an end during the 1970'ies as a growing number of people began practising sport. The result was a rising demand for supple clothes able to follow the body throughout all the movements, a market ideally for lycra wear. Although the colors of the lycra clothes were quite subdued at the start, it soon became widely accepted among athletes to show the body in bright and fancy lycra wear. The growing interest for practising sport did not only affect the various well-known disciplines of sport, but also gave fertile soil to a quite new breed of mountain climbers. Sportclimbing was born, and opposed to the traditionalists climbing mountains just for the sake of being there, the sportclimber did not go for the summit, but challenged the difficulties found on the rockface. This young breed of sportclimbers brought the habits from the gym out in nature, thus enriching it with the wonderful lycra wear. In the beginning of the 1980'ies I had started mountain climbing myself, but although I was the traditional type, climbing the mountains for sake of the good views from there, I kept a very keen eye on the sharp and well-built sportclimbers showing their muscular bodies in tight-fitting lycra clothes. I have always had an affinity to good legs, and I easily could be diverted from watching these climbers wearing their lycra tights, revealing all the contours and bulges. However, climbing fashion in Denmark was lacking some behind, and for at start I had to do with flipping through the glossy climbing magazines. At least until 1985 when I opened my own climbing shop, bringing lycra tights to the Danish market. I was one of the first to buy a pair of lycra tights, but as I neither was a sportclimber, nor did I have the perfect body to show off, I kept my tights in the closet for a while. But a year later I decided it was time to take my lycra tights to the mountains, as I ventured on a ten-day solo trip along Geigenkamm in the Austrian Alps. This was my first time wearing lycra in public, and my decision of making my first performance with no spectators seemed appropiate, as I most of the day walked the tracks with a potential hard-on. But it was such a great experience, that after that day I simply had to take a pair of tights with me on any mountain trip. This went on for about ten years. I had now built up quite a collection of lycra tights, probably among the largest in Denmark, and I now used lycra tights for much more than mountain climbing: for running, lounging at home, and even when going to town. Entering the computer age I got the idea of building up a gallery of my lycra tights, and started taking much more pictures of my tights. It would be too easy just to take pictures at home, so I insisted on taking them on my various trips abroad. Gaining access to the Internet I very soon saw this as a possibility of meeting guys with a similar interest in lycra tights. That I wasn't alone I soon found out as the Hotmail account name Lycraman already was occupied. I made my first website on Geocities, thus learing how to work with HTML coding, and one year later I got my own website and profile on Gay.com, making myself more visible this way. This was the birth of my alter ego Lycraman, as no nickname could express my lycra interest better. However, I was not able to build the Gay.com site the way I wanted to, so I very soon gave up maintaining this site as well. As of 2001, my Lycraman website finally opened as part of my other website viaalpina.dk, and three years later under its own domain name. A roomy webhotel gave me the possibility of building my Lycraman site the way I wanted it. So far I mostly am working on exposing my lycra galleries on the internet, but I'd like to build a little more with stories or fantasies, of which I've already put out my Fantasy Story no.5. Only time sets the limits. I know by now that I am not the only Lycraman. On eBay I see that there is a lot of trade in lycra gear, and buying and selling lycra stuff this way have given me a lot of interesting contacts to lycra people in other countries. And if I am not able to meet likeminded guys here in Denmark, I feel fine just being a member of a worldwide lycra brotherhood.