Words to Ride By: Thoughts on Bicycling

Introduction

I don’t think I truly began to ride, or understand what it means to ride, until I weaned myself off my knobby-tired mountain bike and discovered the pleasure of a road bike—skinny tires and all.

As most kids do, I rode round the neighborhood on a cruiser. Many years later, in the flush of the 10-speed craze, I graduated to a French-made model. I even smoked the occasional Gauloises.

A move to Marin County, California, birthplace of the mountain bike, kindled my interest in this new form of cycling. Cobbled together with old Schwinn cruiser frames, motocross-style handlebars, and gears borrowed from road bikes, these klunkers (as they were called) signaled a new era in the evolution of the bicycle. Once they were manufactured, I was not alone in wanting one, and the fat tire bike became my ride of choice as I traversed the fire roads and trails on Mt. Tamalpais following in the tracks of the sport’s innovators.

But after some time enduring the gnarly trails, grunt-inducing climbs, and whiplash drops, I found I preferred road biking like a smooth alto sax solo to mountain biking’s shredding guitar riffs. Roads are graded, the ascents less grueling, the descents less wicked, the turns flowing. That was it for me—the flow. I could think about the ride: the cadence, the rhythm, the visceral connection between me, the bike, and the road.

I ride my bike to work, a round trip commute of