I ride a bike with a label absolutely nobody has ever heard of. Of course, it's also 23 years old and has decent, but not top of the line, components, which I'm upgrading bit by bit. People who know bikes will know what they're looking at (good classic lugged steel, touring geometry, in the process of becoming a randonee bike), but to everyone else it's a ten speed and I'm the dork riding it.

If I cared what other people thought I'd be pretty damn unhappy; there's never any shortage of people wanting to tell everyone else what to do, buy, wear or ride. I have a knee-jerk reaction to phrases that involve "you should..." - makes me want to bite people, hard! I've heard way too much of that nonsense. I even had a guy in one of my college classes remark in a disapproving way "you're a keener, aren't you?" I looked back at him and said, "I paid $500 tuition for this class, effing right I'm a keener. What is this, high school?" (this was about 18 months ago... evening class, almost everyone there was a mature or returning student. I was taken by surprise and wasn't as tactful as I might have been, I admit!).