For what it's worth, I'd offer to a new rider or a returner -

If you're not smiling, you're doing it wrong, if you're smiling you're doing it right. Don't get too grim and earnest about having to 'ride right, ride harder, get fit fast'. The most important thing is to like it and to want to do it again.

A ten minute pootle to get coffee is a bike ride. Leading your six year old round the park is a bike ride. Test riding bikes to clarify what you might possibly one day want instead of your yard sale clunker, is a bike ride. (Actually, one of the best kinds).

Maybe, so long as you keep smiling, you might find yourself smiling with a few other friends trying to cover a bit more distance. Or smiling through an organised charity ride. Or building some bike hire into a vacation. Maybe taking a 'cycling for softies' type vacation tour.

And then, guess what, presto-imperceptible-changeo, you're a cyclist. Passed through the 'to do is to be' door.

(That's when the trouble starts. You can't smile unless it really really hurts, and you write to strangers on web sites about just how important white bar tape is).