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OPINION
Just A Ride
Wed, Feb 12, 2014 18:20
46
Just A Road“Have a good ride?”
“Hmm, it’s was okay..”
“Where did you go?”
“Oh, only up there, round there, across there and down there.”
“Anything happen?”
“Not really, it was just a ride.”
“Oh.”
There always seems to be a certain level of disappointment from others when they discover your few hours out on a bike were just a ride. The lexicon of cycling has become so bloated with tales of daring do and awesomeness, formidable elements perpetually battled against and giants of cols eternally defeated by insignificant yet tenacious men that the ordinary has become almost pointless. To further fluff up the banal there are the tiresome Strava conquests, the personal bests, the medals for mediocrity and the files downloaded to impress. If that’s not enough then a million nothings happening every mile are socially shared in a thousand ways, divulged and spewed and empty noise spread loud and thin.
Just riding a bike writes in white.
The simple act of cycling has been hijacked by artfully unshaven men looking painfully into a drizzly black and white middle-distance, a 60 mile sportive is billed as Epic and no ride is worthy of regard unless there’s been Suffering, even indoors. The rhetoric has got out of hand as a modest pleasure has been appropriated, chewed up and marketed to sex up an overweight middle-aged man so he feels more worthwhile heaving puffy up a hill, to the point now that if none of that heroic hyperbole happens, if nothing of note unraveled during a ride and no teeth had to be gritted then it really doesn’t count.
Forget spinning along to clear the head, to work off that little bit of cake, to earn that bit of cake, even just enjoying the sunshine or simply to get out the house, none of these matter any more. Where’s the anguished hurt?
All you need is Just A Ride. Sometimes.
Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.
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46 comments
Very good!
"A sexed up, overweight, middle-aged man", even at half-asleep o'clock that is enough to encourage my breakfast to reappear! Great writing Jo.
People should just enjoy the ride, they will never be pro's, so stop, enjoy the beauty of where you are, take a photo. Leave the Strava, Sky kit & Sportive 'mentality' at home.
(You should know that at this time of year, my riding is mostly in the dark, so there is nothing to see. A lot of my summer riding is Time Trialling, so when the stopwatch isn't running it feels good to just 'ride').
What flavour of Cornetto?
These things are IMPORTANT.
(What's JV's favourite flavour? I may have to ask him on Twitter.)
Increasingly common exchange
Weekend warrior :"Morning"
Me : "Morning - lovely day"
WW: "Yep great - where you off to?"
Me: "Erm - i dont know - nowhere in particular. What about yourself?"
WW: "Well im doing the Bobby BigBollox Sportive in six weeks so im trying to get some big miles in - got to do another 60k before lunch or i lose my place on the Strava league"
Me: "Well i think im just going to stop here and look at this cow having a bath in a big puddle and maybe have a Cornetto - so ill see you later ok? Bye"
WW: Disappearing into the distance...... "You really should be wearing a helmet you know?"
Bloody brilliant!
Good to see Road.cc back doing what it used to do (so very well), namely taking the total piss out of the industry and the image it tries to get us to buy into.
Very very funny.
Sounds like you had the misfortune to read a copy of Cyclist magazine there Jo.
Yeah but where's the segment?
Refreshing perspective - sometimes it's just nice to chill on the bike, particularly not to get wound-up by the cr@ppy weather that's decimated my plans for getting some decent rides in - 4 hours getting sprayed in the face from someone's mudflap-less mudguards on a potholed, mud-strewn road is no fun.
I could no agree more. Leave the smart phone, cadence sensor, hrm and gps computer at home occasionally and just ride however your body fancies! They have been some of my best rides!
+1 - The rhetoric has got out of hand as a modest pleasure has been appropriated, chewed up and marketed to sex up
Absolutely agree. Unplug and just get out there for the simple pleasure of being able to do so. Allow yourself the pleasure of riding for the reasons that make you happy and nothing more.
You will be more content for it.
Here, here. There's nothing like getting in the saddle just to feel the elements on your face. I think most of us ride because it makes us happy but apparently that's just too muppety to admit to. Whenever I think about going for a ride I can't help but smile. Great writing. Thanks.
Wow, that was rather good writing. Someone should print that on a top tube
Someone talking sense, elegantly written.
I'm in, going out for just a ride tomorrow morning.
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