Generally I like the company of other cyclists; I happily spend the majority of my working and social life with them.
Despite other areas in our lives that may differ – taste in music, political views and so on – I find that cycling is a great leveller and that when riders get together they will happily get along amicably chatting about their passion for hours.
That ardour can sometimes spill over into eccentricities and annoying quirks. It’s something we all do, but unchecked you may find yourself riding alone next time you go out on your bike.
Here are some that I have encountered over the years (and yes, I have been guilty on occasion of some of them too):
The half-wheeler – half-wheeling is the unscientific term for riding slightly ahead of your fellow rider (usually half a wheel’s worth) when riding two-abreast. It means that your riding partner speeds up to come alongside you, but as they do so you speed up slightly again. Unchecked this ends up as a full-on race.
A friend and I years ago, when riding to mid-week club races, would do this to each other and arrive at the race start in bits as we’d ridden for the last 30 minutes at an average of 23mph.
The numbers geek rider – we all know one, usually a time-triallist, who revels in all the data that they can summon. It used to be limited to heart-rate numbers, but now with the advent of affordable power-meters, Strava and other technology the world is their oyster.
A short chat about functional threshold power can be interesting, but two hours into a ride and you may just want to push them into a ditch.
Once, on a ride around France and Italy a rider in our group took his laptop to the dinner table every night to show anyone who was interested the correlation of his heart rate and power curve on each col that he rode up. Needless to say everyone else was more interested in putting more food in their bodies.
The excuse maker – usually turns up to a ride armed with a long-list of excuses – didn’t sleep well last night, hungover, hasn’t been training and so on. They then proceed to rip everybody’s legs off as soon as the ride starts. On such occasions it is best to let them get on with it and see them at the café stop.
The only time when this is a real problem is when everyone in your group is making some sort of excuse – then you know it’s going to be a beast of a ride.
The wheel sucker – “sitting-in” if you are tired and unable to contribute anymore to the pace-setting of a group is acceptable. In such cases sheltering behind your fellow riders can make a huge difference to the energy reserves you have left, but the wheel-sucker is a different beast entirely. Like a limpet these riders sit behind other riders revelling in the shelter afforded to them. They will refuse to come through and take their turn riding into the headwind. Often the only time they take a chance at the front of the group is when there is a Strava segment on offer, then they shoot out of the bunch to take the glory in the mistaken belief they are Mark Cavendish or some other such rider, before returning to recover behind someone else again.
The “can you lend me a…?” rider – at the café stop they’ve forgotten to bring money with them, and when they puncture they don’t have a spare tube or pump. In fact often it’s a surprise they have managed to remember to turn up at all.
There are of course lots of others, but ultimately as long as we are riding safely then such trivialities usually go down as amusing anecdotes. A great strength of cycling is that it attracts characters from all walks of life and for me it is that variety of camaraderie that makes cycling such an enjoyable activity.
Join the Blazing Saddles Strava Club at: www.strava.com/clubs/BlazingSaddlesWeekendCourier
Where to Ride? Montreathmont Forest – OS Landranger 1:50,000 Map 54 NO561540
Suitable For: Family cycling and mountain bikes
Distance: Various
Description: Just south of Brechin this forest is largely coniferous, but has a network of forestry roads criss-crossed with tarmac roads (make sure you take a map as they can get a bit confusing). The flatness of the area makes it ideal for younger riders.
