Heyduke

Wait.

You smoke?

Inquiring smokers want to know.

MIN 

Only when I'm stoned.

hoodooguru

Okay you win this thread.

p0cket penguins

ill only have a one if i have been heavily drinking.... and then i only finish half and wake up disgusted in the morning.... happens 5-7 times a year.... stupid smoker friends

RazorWind

What are the things strapped over their shoulders?

BoSoxYacht

The only time I want a cigarette is when I breath in, after that I'm done with them.

Hocam

Tubular tires.

They didn't have support cars following them, unlike now where the Nancy boy pro-racers who throw their $10,000 bikes when something breaks.

On one of the first editions of the TdF one guy broke his fork, so he went to a blacksmith shop and fixed it. Of course, even though he still finished he was penalized for having a boy pump the bellows for him while he worked.

Also, they all smoked back then to "open up the lungs" before starting a big climb.

BoSoxYacht

it's a sew-up tire.

mr_tom

Spare Rizla.

Sirrobinofcoxly

Tubular Tyres (Damn, way too slow)

chipcom 

What's it been now....like 4 or 5 weeks since my last smoke?

Heyduke

How'd that happen?

Psimet2001 

Rode. Then smoked for 8 year....riding was...not so good. Then quit. Gained a ton of weight (due to diet, but I am sure the metabolism shift didn't help)....riding was...not so good.

Riding while chewing Nicorette was an experience. I actually kind of enjoyed it.

Smoking after a ride always made me feel like poop....so I rode less.

Smoke free for a number of years now. My last "cheating" - like most - occured while drunk and resulted in projectile ejection of stuff from an entry only port. Since then the thought of smoking only brings back that memory.

Thanks to our gov here in IL we went smoke free as a state on Jan 1. That finally eliminated the small ammount of temtation left when operators would hang out outside my door finishing their treats before coming in.

The smell - while disgusting to most - is intoxicating to me.

Now....everytime I go on a lung shredder of a ride and spend the next few hours coughing up stuff that would make for a nice lab experiment I seem to want to blame all of the smoking I did.

GP 

Down to 3 packs a day.

Psimet2001 

I guess I chimed in - even though pcad said he only wanted current smokers - because I look at smoking like a recovering alcoholic looks at drinking. Just because I don't do it anymore doesn't mean I am not a smoker.

Heyduke

That's tough.

I LIKE SMOKES....but wonder what would happen if I quit...given my obvious weak will.

darkfinger

yes....unfortunately, but down from a pack and a half a day to around 5.
Soon none.

San Rensho 

I rode and smoked for about 3 years. I could kinda keep up with the training ride/race group. It was easy to justify smoking because I was faster than most casual riders since I could ride with the "big boys" for a while.

I quit about 3 months ago and within two weeks of quitting I was easily keeping up with the group. The difference was very apparent.

Tried smoking a cigarrette about a month ago and I thought I was going to die. Athsma like constricting of the lungs and it tasted awful!

mattm

yes i smoke, but not on the bike.

after the local double-century a friend and i lit up, you can bet we were the only ones doing that!

but i am trying to quit - the right-handed cigs anyway.

orcanova

I was always athletic and never smoked. I raced duathlons for most of the 1990's so I was in the best aerobic and physical shape one could be in.

Enter trainweck of a broken relationship, busted heart, ***** set me up and all that, and I smoked from 2000 to 2004. I never gave up cycling though, even though I quit racing.

While smoking I was in great shape, rode fast, and it didn't seem to affect my cycling, or so I thought. I started coming down with bronchitis every summer right in the middle of my cycling season. I never had bronchitis in my life before that. I think the smoking and the riding were on a collision course and that bronchitis was the carnage.

I quit smoking and never looked back. I can be around smokers and there is no temptation at all anymore. I just don't want it. When I first quit the smell was a trigger, but I just decided my willpower was going to be stronger than Phillip Morris and their marketing.

I used to love a smoke with morning coffee, after a meal, or while driving. Strangely, I would also love a smoke after a hard ride. I would sit there in my kit on my back porch, having a smoke. I don't care what it looked like, but I care about what it does to me. I made a pact with myself a long, long time ago to make the most of the blessings I have been given in life, and my healthy body was one of the most important of those blessings, so it was time to renew that pact. That is a feeling much more powerful than any nicotine urge. I think the smoking was a manifestation of depression that I was going through, a sort of self-flogging, subconsciously harming what was most important to me: my health.

I am curious to those who ride a lot and smoke, if you have had any physical fallout or distress like I had with the bronchitis.

333foto

I quit smoking about 5 months ago... easy transition since i was only smoking a few cigs while drinking beer in the evenings. I feel a lot better and my stamina is at higher peak now. Quiting smoking also helped me quit drinking a lot of beer.

Win/win situation. The best part was that I didn't try to quit, I just don't feel like it anymore. It's all mental.

Heyduke

This is me exactly. Sometimes I'll think about this back porch moment while I'm riding and getting close to home. I'll ******** sprint home! Its messed up!

No fallout or distress but I've been doing it so long that I don't know what it feels like to ride as a non-smoker. So, there is quite possibly some distress or fallout but I won't know until I quit.

huytheskigod

One of my Physics TAs from sophomore year of college told me a story about how he got his dad to stop smoking. with out letting him know, My TA took his father's cigarettes and soaked them in 91 octane gasoline, let them dry out, and repacked them. When his father went to smoke them, he got so sick that he never touched cigarettes again. Kind of extreme but it seemed to work.

Doctor Who

I went to Germany as an exchange student in 1998 and besides exploring the wonders of Amsterdam coffeeshops, I also came back a smoker. I was never much a 'hardcore' smoker, but I definitely averaged 1/3-1/2 pack of Camel Ultralights a day. I always wanted to quit, but surrounded by friends who all smoked more and without shame, it was hard. I quit in 2004 cold-turkey.

I gotta confess: a good friend of mine from back home moved up here to Chicago recently and he still smokes, albeit only maybe a 1/4 pack a day. If we're out and I'm feeling sauced, I'll take a couple long drags off of one of his cigarettes. I have no urge to go beyond that and I don't have much in terms of cravings when I'm not around him.

That said, whenever a smoker walks by me and I catch a whiff of some of their secondhand smoke, I start salivating. I guess the hooks are in me deep. I can't go into a smoky bar without getting nauseous, and the thought of actually becoming a smoker again disgusts me, so take that for what you will.

Jerseysbest

Wow, that's pretty extreme.