Infotainment

One of my favorite pastimes recently has been reading advice on cycling online and from handy dandy books from the local library. This has nothing to do with me actually needed advice, I just like reading all the absurd things that people write in these things. The basic summary of most cycling books would read something like this.

Cycling is a very expensive sport, which requires the highest grade equipment and multiple safety components for a person to be successful at riding down the street. Cycling is only ever acceptable if done in spandex and only on the weekends. Helmets can protect you from falls, cars and stray bullets. Everything that you ever did while riding a bicycle as a kid is unacceptable and wrong. 

I swear that most of these "cycling" books were written by car manufactures to  get people to not ride in the first place.

"Really, I need special shoes to ride down to the store and get beer? Guess I'm driving again."

In a recent book I read, there were different sections on how to dress, while engaging in different cycling activities. It basically went like this.

Commuter
cycling shorts
clipless pedals
jersey
windbreaker
helmet

Road cyclist
cycling shorts
clipless pedals
jersey
helmet
gloves

So you basically lose the windbreaker and put on some mushy cycling gloves.

There are of course the books that promote a relaxed and comfortable riding position such as having your handlebars positioned a foot below the saddle. You know for those long grueling comfortable endurance rides.

You can definitely see the marketing bleeding through around the edges from their magazine soaked minds. Bicycle magazines, like most magazines, are just one big long advertisement on how everything they are telling you is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you and the worst thing that ever happened to your bank account. These cycling books are the same. They may not actually promote a specific product, but they promote a specific way of thinking that is something we find comforting in our consumer life. Buying things will lead to happiness, and with enough gear cycling will be as easy as pissing on your feet. Anything that goes contrary to this type of thinking is suspect and therefore wrong.

The sad thing is that I believe this hyper focus on a gear centric type of cycling puts people off to cycling as much as mandatory helmet laws. No one is going to try and use their bicycle as an alternate and cheaper means of transportation if they believe that they need to get into full racing kit to go pick up some doughnuts from the local store, or go to a restaurant for that matter.

The key thing to staying comfortable on a bicycle is speed. Well, lack of speed to be more exact. Bicycle specific clothing is beneficial when someone is trying to get maximum output out of their bicycle. You build up a healthy amount of heat by doing this and hence you sweat like a monster, so high tech fabrics (polyester) that wick sweat away from the body is needed. Going slow is the real key to comfort. If I want to arrive somewhere and I don't particularly want to be a sweaty mess I just make sure I don't exceed a certain gear ratio. It means I won't kill myself trying to fly on the flats or work when I'm going down hill. I coast down the hills and cruise across the flats and I stay nice and comfortable in whatever I'm wearing.

Don't listen to the hype, go mash some pedals.