People are always telling me how I should feel about cycling. I should feel exited about the race scene or offended by athletes who use steroids or impressed by those who do not. When I ride with my friends, I should feel envy over someone’s new carbon fiber bike or prideful about my own. I should feel pressure to keep up with industry trends or constantly eager to buy some new trinket hailed to be the greatest thing bolted to bicycle since the wheel.
I have websites telling me how to save a buck through huge corporate product suppliers, whose websites do nothing more than shuffle boxes in one warehouse door and out another. Although they sell cycling products at wholesale prices, they actually have no place in my community. Although it’s always tempting to buy their cheap stuff, when I shop through them, I feel like I am part of the problem. On the other hand, I am told by chat room forums that I should shop local and be loyal to smaller, family owned bike shops who do not have the lowest prices. They also may not have all the products I want in stock. But they actually are the folks who move cycling forward in my community.
In the meantime, mass media tells me how I need to feel about the Tour de France or the pro athletes or their bikes or their clothing and to be honest; I have one message to send to all of those who would tell me how I need to feel about cycling; I ride for me. When I’m on the trail, I’m not there to show off gear or my new shiny bike or to impress cycling buddies about the innovative products I read about last night. I’m there for the ride.
Whether or not elitist millionaire athletes use drugs to cheat in races which promote giant corporations who cram the market with products I don’t need; doesn’t really matter to me. That isn’t my ride. For the athlete who cheats; the win, the trophies and the self loathing are his to have. None of these need concern me. Yes, I will agree that cheaters shouldn’t win. But I don’t want to read one more article about it in a cycling magazine. I don’t want to hear any more about it from talk show hosts and I certainly do not want to think about it when I am on my bike.
I also try to ignore the constant lure of novel cycling contrivances. Every time there is any new innovation in the industry, I do not need to give in the pressure to go get it. In fact, I purposely own a very old, heavy and slow bicycle. It is a Schwinn, made by an American blue collar artisan and it is almost as old as I am. Although it has little chance of winning a race, it is a thing of beauty. It isn’t new in any way. It isn’t ahead of it’s time or aerodynamic or made of carbon fiber. So what’s so special about it?
This bike reminds me that the ride, is about the ride. When I’m on it, I have the feeling of flight. It almost seems to lift off the ground and glide and inch or so off the pavement. Ten minutes into a ride, as my heart rate quickens and breathing gets deeper, my pedal cadence picks up and my mind introverts a bit. I begin to think of things that I only consider on a bike and for the duration of the ride, my entire world becomes smaller -just big enough to accommodate myself, my bike and my thoughts. For a little while, I almost entirely forget the rest of world exists. This is how we should feel when we ride our bikes.
Full disclosure, I have lots of cycling products and a larger than normal collection of bikes. Carbon fiber road bike, fixie, aggressive cyclocross bike, couple of mountain bikes, hybrid and the lots of others. I have shoes and lights and helmets and plenty of kit. But the ride is not about that. Nothing wrong with cyclocomputers or GPS but I don’t need Strava to tell me if I am having a good time.
If you see me on the trail and I look distracted; if I am not wearing the latest thing in spandex; if you notice a conspicuous lack of speed or swagger but I still look perfectly happy; the reason is simple: I’m riding for me.
See you on the trail!
The Bike Guy