Thought I might post this list from Bicycling.com, 101 Things to Love About Cycling, adding our experience with them. It’s a nice list that gives you a good feeling about cycling, but I’ve checked very few of these things off of my list! Goals for 2012 and beyond, I suppose!

 

1. Riding on New Year’s Day, no matter what

Don’t think we managed it this year

2. French fries at the restaurant on the top of the Tourmalet

Haven’t been to France, but happy to accept invitations!

3. Bumping a water bottle closed on your hip

4. The inexplicable ability to feel the rider behind you … and to sense when he’s no longer there

5. The first postwinter ride in shorts and a jersey

Or unexpected 60 degrees temps during the winter?

6. Dropping the friend who always dropped you

7. Riding on the hoods

8. The flyover

9. Circling at the top of the hill, waiting for the others …

10. … and circling at the bottom

11. Laterally stiff, vertically compliant—when it works, it really really really really works

12. Walking your bike by the saddle

Have to try it, always use the front, maybe that is the nerdy way?

13. A paceline in which you have absolute trust

Hope to find a cycling group someday

14. Setting the gripper on your shorts exactly where your tan line is

15. Hearing someone tell you “Nice pull” …

16. … in a voice somewhat out of breath

17. A relationship that began with a ride

Eyegirl and I have just the opposite, a relationship that turned into a ride!

18. Smelling the embrocation waft off your own legs

Oh boy, don’t know about that one

19. Riders who don’t train, show up on unimpressive gear, and rip ass

20. Having a friend fall in love with the sport, on the bike you loaned him

I fell in love with cycling on a bike my father in law gave me, guess I need to pay it forward!

21. On the rivet. Tout adroit. El gancho.

22. Knowing how to lean two bikes against each other so they can stand without other support …

23. … and knowing how to stand a bike by its pedal on the curb

24. LeMond at the line, 1989 world champs

25. Fresh bar tape

That you wrapped yourself, not quite perfect – there’s always next time

26. Finishing a three-hour ride in 90-degree heat drenched in sweat—and somehow feeling not filthy stinky but cleansed

27. Watching a race in a bar in Belgium

28. When the red light changes to green at the exact moment you’d have to put a foot down

29. Figuring out how to carry all the groceries home

Backpacks and handlebars!

30. Riding someone on your handlebar

31. The Campagnolo corkscrew

32. Rolling along a city street on which car traffic is stopped

33. Being reminded of all the bike knowledge you’ve acquired when spell-check thinks “derailleur” is a mistake

34. Champion’s quads

35. The presta valve, for its elegant simplicity as well as its continuing inscrutability to the general public

Had to consult Eyegirl’s father on my first encounter

36. The anticipation, anxiety, eagerness, and sense of history you feel as you pedal through Bedoin, the last town before Mont Ventoux

See #2

37. Purposely riding through the radius of a lawn sprinkler on a hot day

38. Finger juggling a frosty CO2 cartridge

39. Winning the race home against the rainstorm…

40. …and losing sometimes, too

Our story

41. Wiping away tears at the bottom of a long descent

42. The pleasure of the pride of sitting up and taking off your vest while riding

43. The lanterne rouge, a concept that’s not in football, baseball, basketball, badminton, or any other sport

The distinction of making the cut and finishing last

44. Being given a spare tube by a complete stranger

45. Banana for breakfast, 6 a.m., on the roll

46. Walking into the house gritty and begrimed after a stormy battering, with the toll of the ride, so often invisibly borne, for once plain on your face

47. Removing and installing a wheel the way we were meant to—after the lawyer tabs are filed off

Had to look up “lawyer tabs“. Never occurred to me to file them off

48. Getting a chance to ride with a pro—who keeps reminding you to slow down

49. Switching from bar tops to drops and watching your speed bump up a couple miles per hour

50. Naming a ride

51. And better: Having a ride named after you

52. Taking off a kid’s training wheels

53. Not unclipping once on a 50-mile ride

I guess we need to find some more deserted roads!

54. The socks

55. That one hill that never gets any easier—and, conversely, never any less satisfying to crest

56. Arced over the bar, hands deep in the drops, a knife fighting against crushing fists of a headwind

57. Allez! Venga! Dai! Hup!

Allez is our favorite

58. Helen Keller, cyclist: Anyone can do it

59. Burning 898 calories in an hour

Since reading the Fat Trap, I’ve been skeptical of calorie calculations

60. The fact that science still cannot fully explain how a bicycle stays upright

I thought Mr. Wizard explained it pretty well!

61. The Rider, by Tim Krabbe

62. People in cars, heat or AC on full blast depending on the season, staring out at you as if you’re a lunatic

63. The V carved into your well-trained calf

64. Whether sweat or embro or both, shining quads rising and falling in your peripheral vision 95 times a minute

65. The drop bar—is there any more comfortable, versatile handle in all of sport?

66. Riding to the ride

67. Understanding that frame scratches and paint wear are to be cherished like wrinkles—and it takes a lot of wisdom, not just age, to get to that point

68. A near-effortless 25 mph in a tailwind

69. Coming out of a shop to find someone you don’t know admiring your bike

70. Finding a new hill, figuring out how to work it into a route, then debuting it to your pack

71. Breaking the speed limit on descents

I think we may have done it

72. Not hitting the caterpillar

73. The snot rocket: necessary antidote to both maturity and the sometimes suffocating demands of civilization

74. Your shadow halfwheeling you then, hours later, falling off the pace in the changing sunshine and able to make it home with you only in your draft

75. “Thanks for the ride”

76. PB&J at the rest stop—it’s a cliche but it tastes so damn right

77. And orange slices—how can they be that refreshing?

78. Outsprinting the dog

79. Dropping back to pull a slower rider up to the group

80. Old European guys with stomachs—and 750,000 miles in their legs

81. Those long, rangy conversations with friends when you talk about things you wouldn’t seem to be able to off the bike

82. “He’s never tired. He’s never miserable.”

83. Flip-flops and a cruiser on the boardwalk

84. Three rear jersey pockets: one of the best ideas humankind has ever conceived

So true, even wore one for a half-marathon for that reason!

85. Full-finger gloves on an autumn day

86. No hands, head tipped skyward

Still working on the “no hands” thing, personal best of maybe 5 seconds – wuss?

87. Small, messy bike shops

88. The timeless beauty of steel

89. The guilt-free post-ride beer

90. Jens Voigt

91. Winning your first race, no matter what the field size is

92. Feeling better at the end of a ride than you did at the start

Always, even if it’s indoors

93. Cycling blogs

94. Becoming part of a pack

95. Riding a trail you built

96. Setting out for a ride without any destination in mind

97. Sharing your favorite routes and trails with out-of-towners

98. Cowbells at cyclocross races

99. Correcting a slide on instinct

100. The rubber-and-oil smell of a bike shop

101. We can forget names, faces, birthdays, and anniversaries, but we never forget how to ride a bike