What type of riding do you do? It’s a common ice-breaker between cyclists who first meet. It’s a base from which conversation can grow. It’s easy, it’s comfortable.
I don’t know that I ever have answered – or will answer – the question the same twice.
“Do you ride road?”
“Been known to yea, but at the moment I don’t have a true ‘road’ bike.”
“Do you mountain bike?”
“Most definitely, and sometimes even on my mountain bike.”
“Are you into gravel?“
“For sure – isn’t it all gravel?”
“Have you ever tried downhill or enduro?”
“Yes, on a few occasions and mostly by accident. I certainly didn’t have the bike for it.”
“Do you commute on the bike?”
“Oh, yeah, have for years. But didn’t today. Or yesterday, or Monday, but for sure, yeah.”
“What type of riding do you do?”
I guess the most accurate answer in my case would be “the bike kind, vs. say, motorcycles or horses.”
Though I have a plethora of racks and systems for transporting my bike on/in the car, I am always loathe to do so. It seems antithetical to me. I prefer whenever possible to ride right out of my garage and return thusly. This inevitably means rides take on multiple forms and almost always include surfaces both paved and not. If I head out for an MTB ride I will have to hit some pavement to get to the trails. Often sections of road are connected by gravel. This also presupposes periods of surprise and unseen events on the ride. You may get off-trail and have to bushwhack. You may get lost. And conversely, found. As my comrade-in-wheels Andrew and I are often known to quip, “It’s not a bike ride if you don’t walk for a bit.”
I’m very fortunate to have several bikes for various ‘disciplines’* that I’ve even further accessorized to attempt to broaden their range. Invariably, I still end up riding them ‘out of range’. This is the practice. Under/Overbiking is a great way to improve your fitness and bike handling skills. And it’s also a shit tonne of fun. Of all things, commuting on the bike taught me this as whatever bike I’m on for a commute, I often find myself outside it’s ‘range’ in some spontaneous fit of “oh, let’s go see what’s over there…”
Having multiple bikes and attempting to get them to do as much as possible is very deliberate. If you have a bike for any condition, you eliminate the biggest excuse you have not to ride at all. Quite frequently my rides are completely unplanned – meaning, I have no clear goal, route, or destination in mind. Saturday mornings are the perfect example. For years now, I get up early Saturday mornings, drink coffee and stare out the window and try to ‘absorb’ the weather conditions and what I think the road and trail conditions are outside. Then get dressed, go out to the Clubhouse, pick a bike and head out with the only framework being, “I have to be back by lunchtime.” The conditions are never exactly what I thought they were going to be during my window-staring introspection, and the rides are almost never what I would have intended – if I had intended anything – yet always exactly what was needed.
My friend Movement Amy has referred to movement as art – in her case she is talking mostly about moving your body – the way we move – but she inspired me to think about bike rides as art. Moving through time and space on each ride is unique, it’s a singular art piece that will never be duplicated and exists only the timespan that it’s created. It’s like a two-wheeled NFT.
What better way to spend your time and clear your head than to get on a bike and create a piece of art?
In my case, the rides are rarely about numbers, levels of effort, or getting to an X on a map – though these are all noble pursuits. I have – and will continue to – engage in them all, but for me its more about just getting out – overcoming the the Negative Wolf chirping you to sit on the couch, scroll your phone and eat chips in your pyjamas. Sometimes just finding the time in a busy schedule or beating the elements or getting out of your negative funk is the win.
It’s not about the bike, it’s about the riding of the bike.
“What type of riding do you do?”
“I like to feed the Positive Wolf.”
That, and when all is said and done, any type of bike riding is the best way I’ve found to get a coffee.
*Never mind how fortunate we all are that we can scroll our phones and read blog posts about riding bikes without fear of getting blown up, shot at, or wondering when we’ll eat next – but that’s another discussion all together.