It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but I’ve had dozens of interactions with people that start out something like this:
Me: “Hi I’m Jesse!”
New Friend: “Hi Jesse! I saw you riding your bike really fast in a beautiful place. Or maybe you were running on a nice hiking trail in the mountains. Why would you ever do that?”
Me: “I like going fast. It makes me feel good and going fast in beautiful places is my favorite.”
New Friend: “But don’t you think you’d enjoy it more if you did it slowly?”
I get it. It’s a beautiful place and my New Friend feels that it warrants a slow, measured pace that provides him time to soak up the beauty of the place. For him, that’s the best way to enjoy beautiful places. I’m not judging him for traveling slowly and I fully appreciate that he enjoys doing the thing that he enjoys and I have no right to insist that he do it differently. So why does he feel it necessary to insist on how I enjoy myself?
Before we go any further, I want to take a step back from this and share a moment when I have done the same thing. Hopefully you can relate to this and understand why I think that my New Friend isn’t the only person to fall into the ‘Why do that when you could do THIS?’ trap; we all do it. Seriously.
A few days ago, on a training ride, I was passed on a hill by a heavy-set dude wearing a motorcycle helmet and jeans. The dude was riding a fat-tire eBike with a slammed saddle and three mirrors. I was out of the saddle, at a sustained 400 watts, climbing one of my favorite local hills in team kit and on an expensive, super light titanium bike. I was in my element. And who was this guy? He’s not strong. He’s not like ME. Stupid ebikes. My first inclination was judgment. The guy on an ebike wasn’t doing the thing that I like to do, and I judged him for that.
We all do it. Whether we’re judging snowmobile riders from our fatbikes or quad riders from our gravel bikes, we do it too. But the most damaging to the athlete community is when we do it to each other: runners being unhappy about cyclists, mountain bikers sneering at “roadies”, time-trialists laughing at my totally-not-aero-at-all aerobar setup on my bikepacking race bike. It sucks, and we shouldn’t do it. So let’s acknowledge our behaviour and try to be better.
Let’s look at an example that hits close to home. This is a comment that someone shared on a post made by an elite, professional, ultra-distance cyclist. The commenter will remain nameless, but not shameless. Here’s what he said:
“Racing is for the desperate. Desperate for attention and desperate for an award. Bicycle touring is a form of vacation travel. Make it what you want, it’s still a vacation. But on my vacations, I like to feel free. Not connected to satellites and pushy corporate sponsors. At this point, if you are not bicycling over 10,000 miles per tour before you go “home” or rest longer than a week, then I just see an inferior vacation with rev limiters. Also I would never tour on anything but a steel frame.”
– DickBag McJonesbars
Let’s dissect this a bit. This person also enjoys cycling long distances. He likes the freedom of it, and is partial to the ride quality and serviceability of steel bikes. He’s an athlete. He and I would probably get along if we ran into each other out on a tour. He’s probably ridden in some really incredible places, with his 10,000 mile standard for a vacation. Then why is he not simply judgmental, but also downright mean?
Insecurity.
The same reason that I was judgmental about the eFatbike guy, and, at the core of it, the same reason my New Friend was judgmental about my pace out in the beautiful place. I was judgmental because of my own assumptions about what the fatbike guy thought of me as he passed me. My New Friend was likely insecure about his own fitness or something he assumed I thought about him. Our insecurity is generally unfounded; I didn’t judge my New Friend for his pace at all, and the fatbike guy probably didn’t care about me at all.
DickBag up there made his comment because he doesn’t race and he can’t understand why anyone would ever do the thing they like to do when they could do the thing HE likes to do. He’s insecure about how others perceive him, and wants to separate himself from those who race because of this insecurity. He looks down at competitive athletes as ‘desperate’, and shares his experience as the RIGHT WAY TO RIDE BIKES.
Whatever, dude. I’m still going to race. I’m still going to tour. I’m still going to enjoy riding my bike. And you should too. However you like to do it. I won’t (desperately) try to construct lines to separate you and I and our pursuits. I won’t say mean things about what you like to do or try to minimize your experiences by touting my own.
All of this to say: it’s totally reasonable to enjoy doing the thing you like to do. It’s also totally reasonable to question why others don’t enjoy doing the thing that you like to do. And when you do, be respectful of the individual preferences of others. Not everyone likes riding bikes fast or climbing mountains or running ultramarathons, but I don’t get to dictate what everyone likes. I get to do the thing that I like and I get to feel insecure & judgmental sometimes. All of that is okay.
But it’s NOT OKAY to be a DickBag. Go do your thing. Do it with all of the passion you have in yourself and ignore that moment of judgment and insecurity because it’s natural to feel those things. But PLEASE don’t be a DickBag. Respect each other and their pursuits. Listen to others’ stories and share in their joy. Just be better than DickBag McJonesbars.
New Friend: “But don’t you think you’d enjoy it more if you did it slowly?”
I think a lot of the time this comes from people who don’t have much time to spend outside, and so they view time in nature as this “very special occasion” that must be savored as a rare delicacy. But if your lifestyle involves spending many hours in these places every week, it becomes your home and not a vacation. Evolutionarily speaking, it’s civilization that’s surprising, not nature. It doesn’t mean you don’t respect it, but maybe when it’s your home you stop feeling like it’s so blasphemous to go fast, or listen to audiobooks, or do something other than exist in a constant state of childlike reverie at the places you find yourself.
Thanks for that, Joe — I think you’re right. It doesn’t have to be ‘taking it for granted’ to go at a speedier pace, or to fill silence with music; it can just be treating it like home. People treat their time at home in ways to which this view could also be applied but its acceptable to do so because it isn’t considered a “very special occasion”.
Great post Jesse!
One of the best things about riding a bike is the variety of ways it can be done – touring, racing, commuting, etc. It’s unfortunate that these different methodologies also create some sort of perceived hierarchy, or sometimes a sense of elitism. We’re all guilty of it one way or another and I find myself reflecting on this as well.
I’ve grown up with competition so the whole idea of racing is almost a comfort zone for me. I’ve never really toured by bike, and while it certainly intrigues me, I typically find myself searching for some sort of race that fits in to my PTO schedule. While many don’t consider that a vacation, it’s one of the best forms of “vacation” I can think of – challenging myself and my limits while exploring a new place at the same time, and being in solitude while doing so.
When I ran cross country in high school my coach states that his goal as a coach was to simply make sure we enjoyed the sport of running enough that we would continue to run throughout our lives. He certainly cared about the competition aspect, but our team focus was inclusivity, because everybody had added value or support for the team. I hope to have a similar approach in cycling where I’m not focused on just racers and I’m supporting anybody who wants to be on a bike, regardless of how they choose to use their bike. It’s a value-add to a persons life (and our environment) any way they choose to approach it!
Thanks for your thoughts, Seth!
I agree; bikes are awesome tools for moving people efficiently, and can be used to add value to a person’s life in so many ways. Being inclusive is a cornerstone of sport, and there’s no better way to add value to someone’s life than to include them.