Why I Bike (chapter 1)

I have kind of a love-hate relationship with cycling.  It's kind of weird, I know.  Anyone who knows me would think that I have an obsession, which, perhaps, is what leads to the love-hate.  I got into cycling many years ago.  I'm only 29 years old, but I've already been cycling somewhat seriously for a decade.  Wow.  That's kind of a long time now that I think of it.

I've gone through a couple different stages in my relationship with cycling.  I first started in high school.  I'm not sure what started me commuting.  I didn't ride to school, mostly because I needed to be there at 6:30am so I could attend jazz band (I played piano and completely sucked at it, but that's a story for another day).  But I started attending classes and swim practice (I was a fairly decent competitive swimmer, as opposed to jazz band player) at the community college which was about 5 miles away from my house.  It wasn't a good road for commuting or anything.  I had a "wanabe" mountainbike, and I chugged from my house to the community college and back on some of the weekends.

Because the conditions for commuting were so bad, I started researching a bit about how to ride in traffic.  I came across the work of John Forester, who is the seminal author of the "vehicular cycling" movement, which postulates that a cyclist in traffic is just like any other traffic and should ride as such - meaning that vehicular cyclists do things like merge into car traffic streams and take the lanes and turn from the center left turn lane; things like that.  Vehicular cycling influenced my cycling greatly and set me on the path to getting very seriously into commuting.

Since I started working, I've bike commuted to every job I've ever held.

In my first year of college, I got a used road bike for $300.  I probably paid too much for it; it was pretty worn out.  In fact, one of the first of the longer rides I took on it, the rear brake cable broke just as I was leaving my dorm.  My roommate was a runner and got into cycling a little too.  We took some longer rides together, and it was with him that I rode my first 40 mile ride.  THAT, was hard.

A couple years later, my parents bought me my first new road bike, a blue fading to black "Univega Modovincere" (the remade version, not the famous, vintage Univega) with fully Campy Veloce.  That spring, I rode with my first cycling club.  My first ride with them was a 60 miler; my first.  I was so blown by the end that one of the kind souls was good enough to tow me to the highway where it was a 10 mile straight shot into town before leaving me to my own devices.  My first bonk and I was left struggling for home at 12 mph, looking for things to eat by the side of the road while staving off cramps.  I decided after that ride to not do any ride over 40 miles without gatoraid (didn't know about the eating thing yet).

Fast forward about six years and 50 lbs gained through college.  Last fall, I bought a new Trek Madone 5.2 to finally replace the Univega, which was aging.  I just had joined a new club in town, the Portland Velo, and I decided that I wanted to lose weight.  Seeing the scales tip past 200lbs was a wakeup call.  The club century was a week before and I was surprised by how badly I was out of shape.  I was thoroughly trashed after that century.  I started out in the third to fastest group, bridged up to the second fastest group on the road, then immediately fell off.  By the time I reached the 3/4 mark, I was destroyed.  I waited at the rest stop for 20 minutes or so before the group I started with caught up with me again, then I sucked wheel for the last 20-25 miles.

The next weekend, after the club ride on Saturday, I rode to the bike shop where they were having an end-of-season sale.  Bad move.  I had thought sporadically about buying a new bike and I was tentatively thinking of losing the 20 lbs first, then buying a good bike.  But then I saw the Madone and it was marked down over $1000.  I test rode it for a good hour or more, then sat for another hour to decide to finally buy it.  I hate buying things with a passion, but love to own and use new bike stuff!

I started riding four days a week, commuting 26 miles round trip to work, and combining that with a long ride or two on the weekends.  over the next four or so months, I lost about 20 lbs at a rate of a steady 1 lb a week.  In December of last year, I joined the club's bike racing team.  I've now raced for a year, crashed hard twice and broke two helmets, experimented with track and cyclocross as well as road racing, and had a blast.  My one regret is I haven't been commuting as much as I would like.  I consider bike commuting to be my roots in cycling.  I feel bad for having gotten away from it over the last year.  One of my goals over the next year is to balance my bike racing and training with commuting.

I commute for reasons I don't quite understand but which go deeper than doing it just for exercise or doing it to save the environment.  Why I am so attracted to cycling as an activity and lifestyle is something I don't quite understand.  I feel like I bridge many of the sub-groups of cycling.  I am a roadie and a commuter.  A racer and a "Fred".  I keep tract of cycling advocacy and am in favor of bike lanes, but I adhere to vehicular cycling tenants (In general, these positions, to be in favor of bike lanes, and to be a "vehicular cyclist", is a contradiction in terms).  All at the same time.  It is a contradiction, given the way these sub-groups are sometimes so divided.  But that's me.