caloso

Anybody find themselves opening the window and sunroof in the car more since you started riding? I know I do.

FXjohn

Makes a lot of sense.
As you ride your bike on a paved road with cars whizzing by

Cromulent

There are miles and miles of roads in Wisconsin where you might bike for quite a while and not even see a car. Not around Milwaukee... but not too far away. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go play in traffic.

Cheers.

FXjohn

sounds like Indiana...Only I've been told by Bikeforum members that living in the country is selfish, and I'm missing so much culture.

boozergut

I rode a very cheap Mart Bike in college. The thing broke down constantly. I think if more people knew that dependable bikes are out there for a couple of hundred dollars there would be more riders. Nice smooth running twist shifters sure beat the old clicka clicka clunk shifters of old.

bkrownd

Some people had the wrong PE teachers. I still fondly remember my 2 units of broomball in PE every winter. Haven't been able to play broomball since.

Blackberry

A Tale of Two Co-Workers:

1) "You ride a bike. People in my family don't exercise." End of conversation.

2) "You ride a bike to work. Cool. Maybe I'll buy a bike." Next week she did and now she commutes by bike almost every day.

I guess all I can say is different strokes....

Seanholio

Many people have negative perceptions of bikes. They think that it is an indication of poverty, unless you're riding something fancy-looking. They think that it will be outside of their comfort range, which is usually about 2 degrees centigrade. They think they'll look bad in lycra (I know at least two women who gave me this excuse, but I converted one).

One of the most insidious barriers, I think, are X-mart bikes. They're cheap, and no one assists the owners getting them properly configured. The new owners don't know the proper seat height, that the stem can be adjusted or swapped, or that perhaps a larger frame would be more comfortable for their 6'3" body. I'm the kind of guy who researches, lurks in forums, and tries to get the best he possibly can, whereas most people don't know where to begin, and rather than going to an LBS, which is more expensive, they go to Walmart and buy what looks flashy, but doesn't necessarily fit.

Later, they complain that their bike with the overly-cushy too-low gel saddle is uncomfortable and hurts their butt, they quit, and the bike rusts away in the garage.

dchs

I just recently learned what "spinning" is (no, I don't go to a gym...I ride my bike). Apparently cycling shoes and clipless pedals are involved.

Why not just bike? I don't understand.

ovoleg

I do bike, only on Fri/Sat/Sun though... Trust me, I rather be biking than sitting on the trainer. I get tired fast on the trainer too(I guess its because I get bored faster).

I work 9 hours excluding lunch and go to school full time. I have zero time to myself until 10pm at night and at 7am I have to be at work. I rarely even get 8 hours of sleep.

I don't complain, I just make it work...Lots of people have it harder than me.

Cyclepath

No need to aspire to being an "elite" cyclist to ride. How many people in other recreational sports aspire to be in the elite? Thing is to get out & exercise & enjoy it. And it's unnecessary to spend $1000 to get a decent bike. Not that people don't spend that much & more for other recreational gear.

All the bad & hostile drivers out there may be the best reason not to ride, in the absence of trails.

Overchoice of bikes? Could say the same about cars. Go down to the LBS & talk to the sales person about what kind of riding you plan to do & what you want to spend & ask for advice. It's not so hard.

cruzMOKS

In regards to time:
Shut the TV off and you will have all kinds of time.

People need to have purpose (goals) and hope.

Some view appearance is more important than health. But health is attractive and weakness and sickness is not.

Some don’t want to spend money on something they may not stay with. In the beginning any bike will do.

No pain no gain
I want to live my life aggressively, not passively.

shokhead

Did you before you started? Most that dont ride dont find riding a pleasure. I didnt until i started.

superdex

An hour-long spinning class that is scheduled and compartmentalized is easier to fit into a busy schedule of work, life, kids, soccer practice, meals, homework, etc. For some, having that routine is easier. I for one, am happy to see anyone exercising, whether it be in the gym or wherever. At least they're doing something. Some people need group motivation. Some people need an instructor pushing them. It's better than not doing anything right?

shokhead

Gee,it seems like a bike at home to jump on and ride would be easier then getting in the car,driving to the class,doing what you do before getting on the bike,stopping,doing what you do before you go outside,get into your car and drive home but maybe i'm missing something and most of us have been there with all that stuff and more but somehow fit in cycling.

Boiler

AMEN ON THAT!

superdex

The gym I belong to is a half mile from the office, the bike --which is at home-- is 11 miles away from the office. I bring a backpack with me, and stop at the gym on my way home. How is that difficult?

In the end, it's about getting exercise. That there are people that think less of others because they don't participate in the same sport is, well, ignorant. --Whether it be cycling, weightlifting, yoga, running, or whatever. Anyhoo....

ovoleg

My class starts 30 mins after work, If i drive home, grab the bike, and head out, I'll get there in like 1hr30min. Trust me its not pratical for me..Even if I commute to work, I'll be late to class everday

Maelstrom 

Simple, its work. Most people don't like to work that hard for any gains.

PaulH

Part of it is that we often think of cycling as a sport. Fifty years ago, nobody had heard of the Tour, and bikes were simply transportation. The idea was that you tried to get from A to B on the bike with minimum effort. Thinking of cycling as a sport keeps us from seeing it as a convenient way to get the nearby places where parking spaces are hard to find. It also encourages us to sell and use bicycles that are optimized for performance over convenience and practicality.

However, that is just part of the problem. We don't, as a culture, have a good attitude toward sports. Sports are something you do in elementary school. If you are good enough to make Varsity or JV, you do them in high school, or even college. If so, you are in a very competitive activity, and you will train to the point of exhaustion every day. At the college level, you may need a tutor -- not because athletes are dumb, but because the demands of training take so much out of you. All this does not encourage lifetime participation in sports. We expect to play sports for a short time and then become spectators.

There's another category we have besides sport. It is exercise. Exercise consists of boring, exhausting, unpleasant physical activities that we engage in because they are good for us. Thinking of cycling as exercise is far more destructive than thinking of it as a sport. Exercise is like sport in that it involves heavy physical exertion. It is unlike sport in that we don't expect that it will be pleasant either to engage in or to watch. Bicycling is usually sold to consumers as a form of exercise. Consequently, most people think of cycling as exercise, with some connection to sport. People hate exercise, but force themselves to do it.

What everyone loses track of is the pure pleasure of riding a bike. I'll never forget my first bike ride as a child. It felt like levitation -- riding up in the air, gliding effortlessly at four times walking speed. We forget that sport used to mean fun, and that exercise was incidental to sport.

To me, bikes are like the sports cars of the 1960s -- enjoyable vehicles that allow one to rush through the night with the wind in one's hair, but also serve a practical purpose of transportation. Unlike sports cars, they also provide significant physical conditioning. Also, unlike sports cars, you can street race without problems from law.

Paul

danch

Very insightful post, Paul. I think that begins to get to the core of the matter, rather than the superficial symptoms.

slagjumper

Biking is very popular.

This is an article about an upscale shop that caters to the upscale, (wealthy and uninitiated) kinda folks that you might find living in suburbia. I personally like the dirty but chuck full LBS with inked employees, but not all do. I dont think that you need to create a pw but that will only take a sec.


https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/bu...=5070&emc=eta1



Walking is the Number One
Sports Activity

Although participation declined 2.6 percent, exercise walking continued ahead of swimming as America's most popular activity among the 45 sports and fitness activities surveyed by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) for 1991. Exercise walking had 69.6 million participants in 1991, versus 71.4 million in 1990. Swimming drew 66.2 million participants in 1991, a 1.9 percent decline from 67.5 million in 1990.

Completing the top ten activities were bicycle riding (54 million participants), camping (47.1 million), fishing (47 million), bowling (40.4 million), exercising with equipment (39.2 million), billiards/pool (29.6 million), basketball (26.2 million) and aerobic exercising (25.9 million).

acorn54

as far as i remember i started serious biking in 1992 (i'm 51 y.o.) when i was looking for something interesting to do.
i went to my local sears and just bought a bike off the showroom floor already assembled and rode it home.
what left an indelible impression was the ride home from buying the bike. i was amazed at the effforlessness and speed with which i was able to get to my house on the bike. have been biking ever since.
acorn

Redrom

I've seen a person take the elevator (at a hotel) to get to the stairclimber!

Boy, are we all a bit cynical? I think the reasons are much more subtle than we are going on about.

We don't want to become the elitist snobs that keep people away from cycling...

Cromulent

Yes, we don't want to be one of those roadies our mothers warned us about. Cycling is a lot of things. It can be transportation, a hobby, exercise, a sport, an obsession. And it can be more than one thing to each person. But the reasons we ride a bike are probably very similar. And not everybody shares that. Cycling makes sense to us, but it doesn't make sense to everybody.

If we're talking about biking as recreation and a hobby... well there are lots of those out there.Some people go to the gym. Some people like theater, some people go to the movies, or play video games. I don't get stamp collecting. Some people love it.

The original question is: why do so few people find biking a pleasure? That could mean: why do so few people choose cycling as a hobby? Well... somewhere along the way they took up stamp collecting, or video games, or rock climbing, or kayaking, or knitting instead.

It could mean: why do so few people take up biking for exercise? Well, there are lots of ways to exercise and biking happens to be one of them. I don't like jogging. Gyms make me nuts. Biking just makes more sense to me. But that's me.

Or it could mean: why do some cyclists seem to take it way too seriously and don't seem to enjoy biking as recreation and a hobby? Because some cyclists like to challenge themselves to ride faster, further, climb faster, push their heartrates up, and ride until their legs fall off. Someone in the forums wrote that "pacelines are my crack." Other forum members think nothing of riding 200 miles in a day. There ya go.

So there are lots of answers to that question because there are so many ways to enjoy cycling... racing and club rides, biking to work, a week-long tour, a double century, climbing the Rockies, taking the kids around the block, and going for a Sunday afternoon ten-mile ride. We're motivated to do different things within the sport. It just makes sense to us.