The whole ‘You know you’re a cyclist when’ trope is an easy page-filling internet landfill listicle that’s a flippant bingo card exam to earn your acceptance into The Club, whatever that may be, and that’s only once you’ve sweet-talked your way past the grumpy-yet-amiable-in-the-end gatekeeper.
It usually starts with the clichéd qualifier of shaving your legs, then continues to riding your first 100-miler. Then we travel past having more cycling shoes than normal shoes, knowing the exact weight of your bike but not the colour of your partner’s eyes, and finishes somewhere around about having a separate razor especially for those legs, which is when you know you’ve finally made it to the highest echelon of this made-up peloton.
They’re all jolly fun rusty stereotypes and mildly chucklesome status qualifiers to work through to help validate your wheeled existence if you needed to, even if they do veer dangerously towards the Velominati at times. Although it seems that most everyone happily ignores that set of eye-rolling commandments these days.
Your definition of what makes you A Cyclist will probably vary wildly, and you may not even want to be categorised as one and happily just be a person on a bike enjoying the breeze of nuanced distinction; but none of these oft-regurgitated badges of honour are the whole story of spending time on a bike. It is those little moments in between the milestone distances, desperately justifying the cost of fancy parts, abiding by some arcane laws, finding the perfect sock length and participating in strange faux-religious rituals that have scarred my memory, impacted me and defined me more as A Cyclist than anything else.
Without further ado, here are the things I truly think define someone as A Cyclist…
1. You’ve broken something brand new on its first ride
2. You’ve had a near-death moment where, thanks only to the grace of your God and not by any skill on your part, you’ve somehow got away with it
3. You’ve suffered a terminal mechanical and had a long walk home in the wrong shoes
4. You’ve taken your bike on holiday… and it’s arrived three days later
5. You’ve broken a collarbone
6. You’ve sat down by the side of the road with your head in your hands, sobbing with tiredness
7. You’ve been so cold and wet that you can’t get the key in the front door
8. You’ve had to knock on the door of a camper van parked by the side of the road to ask if they have any food
9. You’ve had a crash where the cost of trashed components and ripped clothing has been significantly more traumatic than the bodily injuries
10. You’ve overdone it and got ill for months
11. You’ve had a friend killed by a car driver while just out riding their bike
broken mech – 1 (2).jpg (credit: road.cc)
There are times when I’ll proudly identify as A Cyclist, and more than often I’m quite happy to scoot around the corner and distance myself from that epithet, but I can tick a lot off this Cyclist List without being in a desperate hurry to shout ‘full house’. There is one that has evaded me, but to mention it would be not just tempting fate with a pssstpssstpsssst, but offering it a large plate of sausages. I do have a hell of a lot of cleated shoes though…