Every Type of Bike Ride You Will Do in Your Entire Life
We put our heads together to reminisce and daydream about every incredible, life-affirming, death-defying, terrifying, wondrous ride, from your first to your last, and everything in between. The list is pretty damn inspiring.
1.Your very first ride. 2.The first ride that feels routine. 3. The ride when you finally nail that rock feature. 4. The first time you get dropped. 5. Your first time on a velodrome. “How am I not sliding off?!”6. The ride you do with people that you used to hold up as Really Good Cyclists but now you’ve gotten faster and learned a lot more and you drop them or make it over an obstacle they bobble on and you’re like Whoa, maybe I’m getting good at this. 7. The first ride that you fix your own flat. 8. The first ride of daylight saving time.
10. The ride where you realize how out of shape you’ve become. 11. The ride where you realize you’re not that out of shape, it’s just that your brakes have been rubbing for weeks. 12. Your first clip-less pedal ride. 13. The first short-sleeve ride of the year. 14. Your first 100-mile ride. 15. Your first e-bike ride. 16. The full moon ride.
18. The ride where you figure out that bikes make excellent getaway vehicles. 19. Your first bike share ride. 20. The ride when you realize your hard ride is everyone else’s warmup. 21. Your first ride on a new bike. 22. The ride where you find fuzzy mold growing in your bottle. 23. The first time you ride on someone’s handlebars. 24. The first ride you shave your legs for.
28. The first time you get a K/QOM. 29. The ride where you pack leftover pizza and the heavens smile on you. 30. The ride when you find a fun new trail you never knew existed. 31. Your first ride in full spandex. It’s weird. 32. The ride where you realize that chamois cream is the answer to all your problems. 33. The first race you DNF and DGAF.
For the ultimate in number positioning, avoid the bib’s four holes, pinning around them. This keeps the number in place while minimizing the risk of ripping your jersey. Stuff your jersey with a pillow to create a human-ish shape. Position the number.
35. The ride where you learn the cops will pull you over. 36. The ride that spontaneously forms because you’re just hanging out and hey there’s a bike there who do you think can do the best wheelie? 37. The first time you’re heckled in a ’cross race. (Don’t. Cry.) 38. The first ride when you fall over at a stop light because you forgot you’re clipped in. 39. The ride where you finally feel free enough to take your hands off the bars for the first time. 40. Your first mountain descent.
43. The ride when you finally figure out shifting. 44. The “WTF was I thinking bringing a road bike here?” ride. 45. The ride when you’re on the front and you’re worried you’re going too slow for everyone so you push really hard and drop them all. 46. The ride when someone tells you your bibs are see-through. 47. The ride when you eat something you normally wouldn’t and find your new fave ride food. 48. Your first ride on a full suspension mountain bike, and downhills are suddenly way more fun. 49. The race you tried your hardest in but were DFL.
52. The ride when you discover personal lube can also be used for chains. 53. The first ride when you fall over at a stoplight because you forgot you’re clipped in. 54. The ride where someone tells you that you’re not supposed to wear underwear with your chamois. 55. The first ride after you sign up for Strava. Life will never be the same. 56. The ride when you get dropped by someone you introduced to cycling. 57. The first ride you hate.
58. The ride where you’re on the verge of slaughtering every freaking driver in the world. 59. The ride where you and your significant other get in a huge fight and pedal home in bitter silence. 60. The ride you should have done, but you just collapsed on your couch instead and now it haunts you via your friends’ super-rad Instagrams. 61.The ride where you cry tears of agony because life is a shitstorm.
64. The ride where you just can’t shake the creepy feeling that someone is watching you. 65. The ride where you get nostalgic thinking about how bad you were when you first started riding. 66. Double-rainbow ride. 67. The LMAO ride. 68. The ride where you meet the person you’ll marry.
It’s been a hellish week, and nothing in you wants to ride, but your annoying pal talks you into it, and when you arrive, the 12-person pack says, “It’ll be a simple ride.” So you roll out, hoping to emerge from this dark mood.
But there are hills to climb, and an hour into pedaling, you’re seething. The rage only gets worse, and you begin to hate everyone on the ride for enjoying the day and for talking you into what they said would be easy.
Two hours in, you’re still pedaling in the direction of the abyss. You’ve barely spoken to the pack, mostly because you are always just off the back but also because their chattiness is horrifying.
They decide to overtake a small deli. No one can decide on wheat or rye or goddamn pumpernickel, and you wait another hour before getting back on the bike, having eaten no sandwich, out of principle, of course. You consider calling for a lift home, but you ride on, pedaling on nothing but fury for fuel. Time stops. You only hear radio static, and the road narrows to a dark tunnel until suddenly you’re home, showered, and on the couch.
Not a bad ride. –Jesse Southerland
70. The ride when you’re definitely not dressed warm enough. 71. The ride when you run out of tubes and pedal 15 miles home on a flat. 72. The good intentions ride, where you set out to ride AT LEAST 50 miles cause pshhh, that’s nothing. But 10 miles in, you’ve had enough and go home. 73. The ride when you get hassled by raccoons. 74. The ride where you vomit but keep pedaling. 75. The ride when you get hit by a car. 76. The ride where you’re caught ignoring “No Trespassing” signs and have to scramble through the woods to escape.
After hiking my mountain bike up the nearly vertical trail for 10 minutes, I knew it: I was lost.
That didn’t come as a surprise, or even a concern. I had set out on an ambitious ride that included three trail systems, a giant climb, and intentional gaps in my plan of how to get from A to B to C. I knew the trail wouldn’t be marked, but that I would be able to get myself home-eventually.
That sense of uncertainty is something I prize. To me, riding a bike should be an adventure, and adventure always includes dealing with things you didn’t plan for. I think it’s healthy: Finding an unexpected fork on a trail makes my brain light up at the entwined prospects of discovery and failure.
I notice things I normally don’t. Is that creek the same one I crossed a few miles back? Is that whooshing noise the wind in the trees, or cars on a road? Then I pick a trail, and try my luck. Sometimes I end up crawling under a fence. Sometimes I find a shortcut. But no matter which happens, I have permanent knowledge-I’ll never get lost in that place again.
Even once I know which trail will lead me to where I need to go, I’ll often point my wheel in the opposite direction. Just to see if I can find another way home.-
Taylor Rojek
79. The all day long ride. 80. The winter ride when you come home and it hurts so bad as you thaw out in the hot shower that you curl up on the floor and cry (at least on the inside). 81. The ride home from the store with a shuddering plastic bag that keeps hitting you in the knee. 82. The terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ride for no real reason. 83. The OH-SHIT-I-need-to-train ride. You can’t cram fitness in the last week before a big event, but dammit you’re going to try.
85. The skinsuit ride, a.k.a. laundry day. 86. The guilty “I shouldn’t have stuffed my face with junk food” ride. 87. The accidental singlespeed ride when your Di2 battery dies or your derailleur breaks off. 88. The first ride-gasp-at altitude. 89. The ride where a bee gets in your helmet. 90. The foaming ass ride. Extra rinse, people. 91. The ride where you seriously might shit your chamois. 92. The ride where that mutt down the road chases you for a mile.
94. The headwind, both ways, ride. 95. The ride where a runner passes you. 96. The ride where you go too big. 97. The March ride where you haven’t been warm in months and everything is grey and you wonder if it’ll ever be spring again. 98. The totally exhausting, out-of-your-league, snot on your shoulder, can’t-get-dropped-I-don’t-know-where-I-am ride. 99. The ride where a stranger yells weird shit at you. 100. The painfully boring trainer ride. How has it only been 13 minutes?! 101. The ride where you forget to stop your GPS, start driving home, and steal 15 KOMs (oops). 102. The ride where your bottles freeze. 103. The ride when you’re mansplained to by a rider with significantly less experience than you. 104. The ride where you run over a furry mammal and it haunts you forever. 105. The ride you had to skip because you forgot your shoes at home. 106. The epic endo.
I started the road ride with confidence, chatting with friends and flirting with the cute guy I’d been crushing on for weeks. It was spring, April, and everything felt right. But two hours in, I couldn't keep up. This can’t be my lowest gear, I thought, and made everyone stop so I could check if my brakes were rubbing. They weren’t.
I thought back to my morning-kit changes, braiding and re-braiding my hair. The faint memory of peeling a banana came to mind. Shit. I thought. I didn’t eat enough.
On the next climb, my crush put his hand on my back to push me up the hill. I swerved, wobbled off the side of the road, and ate it. The crash didn't hurt anything but my ego, but afterwards, I was too far gone to do more than push my bike up the hills. The group was irritatingly kind, encouraging me on. I responded with guttural groans.
Somehow, I finished. Once I got in my car, I sped to the closest drive-thru and inhaled 20 chicken nuggets. As for the guy? We don’t really talk anymore. But I do bring food on every ride now.-
Katie Fogel
108. The rush-hour ride that happened because it was the only time of day you could sneak out, and you’re regretting it more as each passing soccer mom honks. 109. The ride on the stationary bike at the gym where the cable goes out so you’re stuck alone with your thoughts. 110. The ride where a jackass rolls coal on you. 111. The ride where you rip your favorite shorts.
113. The ride that involves the consumption of multiple meals. 114. The ride where you break your collarbone. Welcome to the club. 115. The ride that takes longer than you said, and your family gets mad. 116. The ride where your bike gets stolen. 117. The PMS ride. 118. The ride where you lose a contact and have to ride home squinting. 119. The ride when you confuse embro with chamois cream. 120. The ride with humidity so high you feel like you’re swimming. 121. The “Is THIS the last hill?” ride.
122. The ride when everything clicks, and you feel like a superhero. 123. The ride where you realize you’ll never be super fast and honestly it sucks, a lot. 124. The ride where you realize that you’ll never be super fast but that’s OK because this is still pretty fun. 125. The ride when you realize you’re the asshole. 126. The ride that you’ve done a million times where you can just shut your brain off and cruise without worrying about where you’re going. 127. The ride where you get to someplace you’d normally only access by car and you realize you can go pretty much anywhere by bike. 128. The sadistically magical ride when you put yourself through excruciating pain for a long time and it feels so good.
130. The ride when you bare your soul and talk about some heavy shit. 131. The life epiphany ride. 132. The ride where you hide beer in the woods for a mid-ride stop and revel in your own brilliance. 133. The ride where you head out with a problem and come home with the solution. 134. The endorphins ride. 135. The ride where you map out and navigate a mission on your own and you feel invincible.
After winning the biggest stage race on the women’s World Tour, the Giro Rosa, in 2013, I needed an adventure. When my older brother invited me to join his crew for the Steamboat Stinger, a 50-mile mountain bike race through the peaks of Colorado, I was game. The long-climb-up, easy-singletrack-down course sounded perfect for a rider with my cardiovascular engine. I hadn’t mountain biked since high school, but somehow that didn’t strike me as a problem.
I rolled my 2003 lavender Cannondale to the start, ready to show off. I reached the first summit in a respectable position. But, roughly five seconds into the first descent I discovered there is no such thing as “easy singletrack” when you don’t actually mountain bike. And so, sandwiched between a drop-off and a cliff face, with nowhere to pull over, despite my panicked need to do so, would-be passers accumulated, each painfully polite, saying, “Right behind you.”
I knew I wasn’t a terribly skilled mountain biker, but I was at the pinnacle of road cycling fitness. If I was still this terrible with all of that advantage, what did that make me? The worst mountain biker in the universe, clearly. I did finish, though I refused to pass a single rider on any climb, knowing I would just delay them on the way down.
It’s been five years, and I cannot not live with this failure in the dirt defining me. There’s a redemption ride coming, very, very far in the future.-Mara Abbott
137. The ride that you never thought you could finish but somehow manage and it realigns all your perceptions of what you’re capable of. 138. The ride you didn’t want to do, but you’re so happy you did. 139. The ride when you realize your bike is a piece of crap. 140. The stop in the woods, lean your bike against a tree, sit down on a rock, and contemplate your life ride.
141. The why-are-we-going so-fast-everyone-is-half-wheeling-for-no-good- reason ride. 142.The sandbagger ride when your friend whines that they’re out of shape then drops you on the first climb. 143. The ride when you break your chain and four of your friends push you eight miles home. 144. The ride where you have to wait for the idiot still tuning his bike in the parking lot.
146. The ride where everyone yells, “SLOWING!!!” 147. The ride when you go so hard to make it to the group on time that you’re blown and almost get dropped. 148. The tandem ride! 149. The Saturday morning shop ride. 150. The ride where the group gets split up and you spend a ton of time trying to figure out where everyone else is. 151. The ride where you meet to ride but end up drinking beer at the trailhead instead.
154. The ride when you take a newbie out, even though it may be painfully slow for you, because more cyclists means a better world. 155. The ride where you don’t know ANYONE. 156. The ride that turns into a race. 157. The team ride where everyone matches and people ask to take your photo. 158. The ride spent trying to figure out who reeks of B.O. 159. The ride where everyone peels off until it's just you.
161. The ride where you accidentally wear the same kit twice in two days and you smell bad and you’re embarrassed. 162. The ride where you drop everyone without trying.163. The ride where everyone wants something different and you all go home unsatisfied. 164. The I-was-drinking-when-I-agreed-to-this-and-I-shouldn’t-have-said-yes ride. 165. The ride when a pal brings magic brownies. Yes, that means weed.165. The ride when you drop a bottle and cause a crash.166. The ride where someone sketchy shows up and you spend the whole ride trying to avoid them.
167. The #MessLife ride through a city, squeezing between cars, taking your own damn life in your hands. 168. The ride that turns into a century because you’re on a roll and just keep going. 169. The freaky, foggy, misty ride. 170. The I’m-going-to-see-if-they-serve-me-in-the-drive-thru ride. They don’t. 171. The Halloween ’cross race. 172. The ride where you see a gun-wielding hobo. 173. The I-don’t-have-anywhere-else-to-be ride. 174. The ride where you swear you are going so fast–until you check Strava. 175. The ride when you “borrow” water from a stranger’s hose.
178. The ride where you made an incredible play-list and can’t believe what good taste you have. 179. The candy-fueled ride. 180. The ride wearing just your bathing suit. 181. The first race you win. 182. The mudfest ride. 183. The ride where you clip a side mirror and don’t feel bad about it. 184. The ride when you’re faster than traffic. 185. The trail sex ride. 186. The VO2 max test ride. Ow, ow, ow. 187. The hit-all-the-sprinklers ride! 188. The naked ride. 189. The ride where you stop to pick up that turtle and move it safely across the street. 190. The ride where you only got out the door because you promised yourself a soft pretzel from the good-smelling place along the route.
192. The crazy commute where you barely make it on time. 193. The Thanksgiving morning ride you do as a preemptive strike. 194. The ride where no one sees your sweet bunnyhop. 195. The ride without a helmet. 196. The ride you take specifically to snipe someone’s K/QOM. 197. The ride where someone compliments how much stronger you’ve gotten after a solid training block.
199. The cruiser bike on a boardwalk ride. Will brake for funnel cake. 200. The hooky ride, where you call in sick. 201. The BMX track ride. 202. The ride home with a hot pizza. 203. The farmer’s market ride that grants you permission to be really smug about your healthy lifestyle as you pedal home with a basket of fruit, kale, and flowers. 204. The ride when you crash at a super high speed and you’re fine.
206. The ride where you get horny and call your honey and say, “I’m coming home sweaty.” 207. The ride where you’re pretty damn sure you found a meth lab. 208. Overcaffeinatedride. 209. The ride where you race the storm home and win by seconds. 210. The ride when you climb a freaking mountain. 211. The ride where you roll a half-block to the coffee shop.
213. The first ride where you hear your tires screaming for traction. 214. The ride that earns you prominent tan lines. 215. The lunch ride. 216. The ride to the tattoo parlor. 217. The ride where you steal a snack from somebody’s apple tree. 218. The ride where you commit a felony. 219. The ride where you take that swoopy corner without grabbing your brakes and almost lose it but then totally save it.
220. The last ride where you feel like a newbie. 221. The last ride before the unintended, shit got crazy, really long break from riding. 222. The last ride before Prince died. 223. The ride to the funeral. 224. The last training ride before a big race.
The light from long Colorado days filters through the groves of yellow aspen. We ride golden high-country singletrack with a kind of ravenous urgency, like animals storing fat for winter. High-altitude singletrack in the Rockies lives on borrowed time. We never know it’s shutdown day until after that snow comes. Only in retrospect do you realize you’ve ridden those private, isolated trails for the last time this season.
Then, like wintering elk, we shift to a lower range, where the rain shadow from the Continental Divide shields the low, semi-arid foothills from most storms. There, even in January, south-facing trails can be swept bare by sun and wind, bone-hard soil frozen but rideable, while miles to the west, the dense conifers hold their snow tight.
We do not mourn the temporary loss of those high summertime routes. Spring will come. Snowdrifts recede, and the trails reveal themselves again. They are never the same as we left them. We discover that we, too, have changed. Muscles lack the strength we recall, and that line threading those trees seems narrower.
It all returns in time, trails and skill rebuilt by repetition. But now, inching up the climb, our thoughts are of the present, of this one, possibly last, ride. At the summit, we stop and look west, seeing the clouds grow darker as the storm gathers strength. Then we’re off, disappearing into the trees to find the start of the descent. Down we go, faster now, until the track is a dreamlike blur. Only later will we recall this ride, with other remembrances of summers past, and dreams of springs to come.-Joe Lindsey
226. The last ride before you knew Lance doped. 227. The last ride before your driver’s license. 228. The last hungover ride. Never. Drinking. Again. 229. The last ride before you crack your frame and trash your bike. 230. The last ride on your old bike. 231. The last day you avoid that super challenging feature.
233. The last ride on your old, familiar hometown roads. 234. The last ride of your fittest year. You'll never feel quite that fast again. 235. The last ride before you realize it’s your drink mix that’s making you throw up. 236. The last ride before you next one.
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