50 cycling rites of passage
Falling in love, graduating high school, the birth of your child – nothing compares with your first case of road rash and these 50 other momentous occasions in the life of a cyclist.
How many can you tick off the list? Which is your favourite, and do you have any to add? Comment below.
01. Realizing that the hill isn’t in the way; it is the way.
02. You go from one pair of shorts to a dedicated drawerful.
03. Being unable to sleep the night after you first shave your legs, because of the tingle of bedsheets against your skin.
04. When “thanks for the ride” goes from something you overhear to part of your vocabulary.
05. You see someone at the beach with a cycling tan (on the quads and biceps), and give him a nod of recognition.
06. Bonking so bad you don’t think you’ll be able to make it home.
07. Discovering how a can of Coke bought at a corner-store can resurrect the dead.
08. Starting and finishing a ride—the same one—in pouring rain.
09. When you hang out at the bike shop and no one expects you to buy anything.
10. When your bike computer registers triple digits for one ride.
11. Clearing a log on a the trail.
12. You lube up before a ride.
13. Staying with the paceline long enough to take a turn at the front.
14. You’re on the bike for the fifth straight day, and your butt doesn’t hurt.
15. You try bibs and realize you can never go back to shorts.
16. You stop riding beside and behind the pack and instead ride inside of it—with no claustrophobia.
17. You swing off the front of a paceline before you get tired.
18. You blow a snot rocket without hitting your shoulder or leg—or the rider behind you.
19. You notice that someone else has the chain grease on his right calf.
20. You get stuck in your pedals and topple over at a stoplight.
21. Someone you introduced to the sport kicks your ass on a ride.
22. Riding a bike through a big, congested city and feeling smarter than everyone else because you’re moving.
23. You wake up to find the sheets stuck to your road rash—and still feel excited about riding that day.
24. Your boss stops by to ask you to explain what’s happening in the Tour de France.
25. You fix up your old bike to get someone into the sport.
26. Wearing out your first set of tyres.
27. You ride through a pothole, and it’s no big deal.
28. Getting hopelessly lost—deliberately.
29. You stop mid-ride to give your only spare tube to a stranded cyclist.
30. You realize you’re driving your car as if it’s a bike—drafting, looking for holes, getting away from the squirrelly guy.
31. Fixing a busted chain.
32. When you no longer have to stop to take off your jacket.
33. Feeling confident about taking off your jacket while riding—then catching the trailing sleeve in the rear wheel.
34. The first time you crumple your race number.
35. Planning a riding holiday.
36. Seeing a sunrise from the saddle.
37. Wondering how the biggest local hill would rank on the Tour de France climb classification.
38. In your head, Phil Liggett narrates your ride.
39. You got dropped, you flatted, bonked, got turned around—and when you got home you said you had a great ride.
40. You roll through a patch of gravel and, without thinking, reach back to brush the crud off your tyre with your palm.
41. A rider you respect says, “You were flying today.”
42. Rolling through a stop sign—and knowing it was the right thing to do.
43. Doored!
44. When you crest the summit of a climb, start down and realize you’ve gone the wrong way. But keep going anyway.
45. Rubbing wheels—and staying up.
46. Letting go of your kid’s seat and not having to grab it again.
47. Getting a bike stolen and being surprised at how deeply it hits you.
48. Cleaning the cassette with your old toothbrush.
49. Sprinting the neighbour kids.
50. Chasing a squirrel down singletrack.
Chatting up a babe on a club ride only for her to tell you that her husband is riding in the A bunch! :)
Doing sabie for your first race and not being bothered to pull your arm away while your throwing up the wonder mix your brother in law gave you to drink
- The first time you are put into A Batch in one of your races!!
- Riding with Cleats, getting past the damaged knees and elbows… and not falling over each time you stop!
Going for a RUN with mates, pointing out and yelling “potholes”, “man hole”, “glass” when they are behind you.
In addition to getting stuck in your peddles at a traffic light; you unclip, forget which foot you unclipped, lean to the wrong side and tumble over anyway.
When you start cycling with cleats for the first time and fall more than 4 times in one single ride.
When you spot another cyclers bike in the parking lot and you walk all the way over to admire the bike.
When you walk past the bike shop and say ;” Whoaw check that out, I saw that same one in the Bicycling magazine!”
What a list!
I still need to do a few.
Have a look at this to get a TRUE comprehension of the TDF
http://twitpic.com/2c2dnu/full
Being so tired after a race, pulling away from a traffic light, seeing why you cleat won’t lock into the pedal and subsequently riding into the back of a bakkie parked on the side of the road
Returning home splattered with mud and what else and feeling happy about it!
Having your bike falling onto your brand new car and your first instinct is to look at the damage on your BIKE
Endo Face-Plant in the Rockery….
When you clean up your old bike and remove all the excess to convert it into a single-speed.
Going track racing and finding a whole new level of pain and lactic buildup
Riding to the top on a 45deg bank for the first time
Finishing a sprint in a track race and discovering a hidden danger in fixed wheel riding
Breaking a cleat in a track sprint and doing a superman imitation over the bars
Learning the difference between road rash and track burns
Riding your first downhill course
Encountering your first rock garden…plucking up the courage then riding it flat out the first time
Flipping your first attempt at a wheelie
Nothing beats your first helicopter(medical rescue) ride after a wipe out and broken leg. then having to come last in an event 6 months later.
Making love, in the shaded area on the Argus, to the sexy rider you met going up Smutswinkel, and continue to finish the race (after pushing up Suikerbossie).
As a novice rider, going through the worst f@**y pain, and doing it all over again the next weekend! Got to get the right saddle!
Loved the “making love” comment though….! Gives new meaning to the “Mile High” … or should we say Cycle “Oh” Club!
Nervously starting your first race wearing cleats and not falling taking the whole bunch with you!
Going down Kontermanskloof from Durbanville side at 101km/h and freaking the bakkie driver in front of you.
Realizing that you are sufficiently experienced to now offer advice to others on cycling matters and not just be on the receiving end.
Catching the crotch of your bike shorts on the front of your saddle and falling down just as you were getting started. In front of other people.
Greeting every cyclist that passes you – even when you’re not on your bike.
When the your insurance premium is higher for the bikes then for your house and car combined.
You wake up before a race and it is icy cold but you still go and do the race.
Doing your first race you so nervous you sit on your brakes down the first hill.
Red robots mean nothing to you.
The “porta poos” become your friend at the start of every race…. best way to lose 2kg immediately – suddenly back at ‘race weight’… :-)
I have not tried the ‘snot rocket’ one yet but man, I think I need that t-shirt “if your friends don’t ride, you need new friends”! I think my non-ridinig friends are SICK of my bike talk! And heaven help the non-riders and a supper with riders – they hear NOTHING else! :)
_your constant flatulence no longer bothers you.. or the loved one. live together ride together, basking in the ambiance, outdoors..
When a guy in the parking area unloads a new R 40000-00 carbon fibre rocket from the backseat of a clapped out old Tazz.
Prayer helps, as in praying that the robots change to red after the La Roche hill so that you have a prayer of catching the bunch that just left you for dead . . .
Been there done that many a time….. ( on that specific climb)
When the club president ask you to lead Sunday’s ride as he is going on leave.
When you wash/clean your bike more than your car.
When you loose the saddle bag and only carry what fits in the back pockets.
When you substitute the hand pump for a Bomb and actually use it sucessfully.
When your dad doesn’t recognize you as you cross the finish line because you’re so covered in mud, tar, and other unexplainable residues after a 100km race in the rain…