Rants ahoy!

[ornoth_cycling]

Got some rants that have been building up…

Don’t wear team kit.

The pros wear advertising because they’re paid to. Unless you’re being paid to wear it, wearing team kit is tacky and arrogant. There’s nothing I enjoy more than dropping someone riding a team issue bike in full pro kit. Cycling isn’t about hero worship; it’s about being a hero, and you can only become a hero through what you do, not what you wear.

Don’t wear jerseys for rides you didn’t do.

Same thing. You have no business wearing a RAAM jersey if you didn’t race across the country, and no business wearing a RAGBRAI jersey if you bought it secondhand from someone who actually did the ride. And this rule also applies to wearing jerseys for a ride you did only in prior or subsequent years. I wouldn’t dare wear a 1998 PMC jersey when I only rode my first one in 2001.

Stop whining and ride.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told “I’d like to go on a bike ride with you sometime, but you’d be bored because I can’t keep up with you.” This is what is commonly known as horseshit. If you were given a chance to go jogging with Joan Benoit, would you tell her “I can’t run with you because I can’t do a whole marathon”? Do you really think athletes only have two speeds: off and 100 percent? Get over it. The only thing you’re doing is proving your own self-consciousness and insecurity.

Comments

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the first two. I'm not with you on the third, because I actually have gone on rides with people who are faster than I am, and what happens is either (a) they truly are bored, and are clearly not having any fun slowing themselves down to accomodate me; or (b) I'm miserable busting my lungs trying to keep up with them. (Or (c), I get abandoned on top of Mount Wachusett with a broken wheel and no cell service on what was theoretically a supported ride, but the sweeps were just too impatient to deal with me.)

I don't think it's a good excuse for *not riding at all*, but it is an excellent reason for *not riding with specific people*.

(And it's fracturing my riding group right now. Last couple of years we were all about the same speed; last year I mostly didn't ride due to pregnancy and this year I mostly didn't due to time -- add those together, plus a c-section, and I've lost a lot of conditioning. Meanwhile another guy's joined the group who's significantly taller, stronger, leaner, and faster than I, and rides an expensive recumbent to boot. There's just no point to both of us being on the same ride; he's made it clear he's not interested in being on a ride that averages under 16mph, and I can't keep up with that. Everyone else in the group is in between us and can go either way...)

[ornoth.livejournal.com]

Mmm. I think that's only the case when you're with someone who refuses to moderate their speed, as might happen on a recurring group ride. See, I get the "I can't ride with you" message from people (mostly non-cyclists) when the topic of doing a one-time afternoon pleasure ride comes up.

What might make more sense than "I can't ever ride with you" might be asking "Would you be willing to ride my distance, at my pace?" If yes, then there's absolutely no reason not to ride together. If no, then you've got a good reason not to ride together. Sadly, it sounds like you've got the latter on your hands.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Alas, the situation I describe was a weekly riding group.

I'm in a tough situation vis-a-vis group rides. Before I got pregnant, "my distance" was 50-100 miles -- a distance at which it's quite hard to find rides I can keep up with. There really is an expectation, once you pass a certain distance, that you have a fair amount of speed and athleticism to go with it, and that's pretty unwelcoming if you don't have your own source of riding companions. (Part of the reason the PMC is great -- you really can ride it at any level, and someone else has taken care of route planning and everything for you.)

[ornoth.livejournal.com]

Yeah. And most people don't understand being on the road for more than say four hours at a time, and 100 miles at a 13 mph pace is eight hours, with almost no stopping.

Like your "friend", I would never begrudge someone a one-time leisurely ride. But if I'm focused on training, then I too need to hammer more, unless it's early season and I'm only starting to do base miles. But I can totally understand that everyone has different gears, which is what makes the Quad rides so good; they fragment into about five different groups, based on speed, and you're never too far from the end of the Minuteman, so people can bail at whatever distance they want.