July 1, 2003 Different Strokes By: Naomi Bloom |
Are you a bicyclist? A lot of different kinds of folks can easily -- and enthusiastically -- answer "Yes!" Fourteen years ago, in his book Tales from the Bike Shop, Maynard Hershon identified some five diverse "types" of riders:
Self-Supported Tourists
Supported Tourists
Resolute CommutersMost of the truly resolute commuters I've known have been women. Shari used to ride 20 miles one-way from Los Gatos to Mountain View on her single-speed track bike! Then she'd turn around and do it in reverse (uphill!) at the end of a long workday.Karen was still commuting daily to a full-time computer programming job while winning pro races.
But the most resolute commuter I know has got to be Joellen. She rises at 3:45 am to pedal from south San Jose to the CalTrain station, rides the train to Sunnyvale, then to NASA-Ames at Moffett Field. The payoff, she claims, is that she gets to leave early enough to return home in daylight. Not to mention the $40 a month she saves by cutting two CalTrain "zones" out of her rail commute. Then there are the former commuters, retirees who haven't given up utility cycling. Like Anne, who still does errands on two wheels. And Don, who as a Cupertino City Council Member for eight years arrived at meetings on his bike. Racer WannabesItalophile? Today local racer-types may also be Francophiles or Aussiephiles. But most likely they're all Lance-ophiles.
I encounter these guys almost daily on my favorite roads. They have clean-shaven legs and are usually decked out in team or club colors. Too many still refuse to wear a helmet, in spite of recent horrible deaths and UCI rulings. Grit-your-teeth triathletesI rarely meet any of these in person. They seem to be so insular, pumping along at race pace, bent over those extreme, ultralight frames. Double water bottles behind their butts. Deadly serious. How can they be having fun?Yet I'm aware that there are many laid-back triathletes. They just strike me as fellow recreational riders (see below). UltramarathonersThese are the folks who think a century is just a warm-up ride. They're mostly card-carrying members of the Ultra Marathon Cycling Association (UMCA). They've usually just completed a 600-km Brevet, are about to do an 800-km Brevet, and are training for RAAM or Paris-Brest-Paris.Reformed former long-distance rider Wyatt claims, "All ultra-marathoners are obsessed." "It's a disease," agrees Paul V., who is doing PBP this year for the third time. "I get to ride 1200 kilometers with very little sleep and not enough to eat or drink, alongside 3000 other cyclists who are just as crazy as I am." If so, it's a contagious disease, since this year the Davis Bike Club Brevet Program alone qualified over 100 riders for PBP. Club RidersHere's where all those different types come together under one label. There's just no stereotype for a typical club rider. But here are a couple of easy-to-spot clubbies:
Mountain Bikin' Mamas and PapasRarely found on paved roads unless pedaling to and/or from the trailhead. Noted for mud-splotched baggy shorts, mud-splotched SPD pedals, mud-splotched technical frames and components. In a big hurry to get the paved part over with quickly; would much rather be atop Bolinas Ridge, shooting down Stevens Canyon Trail or circling China Camp. Yet curiously often seen a day or so later on a road bike and, like Tyler, Steve S. and Lynn (to name but a few), loving it just as much.Newbie Recreational Riders
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Davis Bike Club Brevet Program |