People often ask what drew me to cycling. I'm not sure I've ever given the same answer twice. So I've decided to make a list: five things I love, five things I hate. Here goes ...
Things I love about cycling
1. The feeling of freedom. Every pedal stroke is sheer bliss.
2. Camaraderie. Ever been standing at the side of the road with a puncture and a fellow cyclist has whizzed on past? Me neither. I've had strangers gift me energy gels, dry socks and their last inner tube.
3. Cake and coffee. I can't stress this enough.
4. Hills and rain.
5. The mesmerising spectacle of a rainbow of jerseys packed tightly together as a peloton ascends a steep incline. It always puts me in mind of salmon battling their way upstream.
Things I hate about cycling
1. Cleaning my bike. Alas in Scottish winter this is a frequent occurrence.
2. Crosswinds. I'm a wuss.
3. Those that harp on about what we should/shouldn't wear on a bike. For the love of God, give it a rest. Be it padded Lycra shorts, jeans, a dress, suit, overalls, whatever, just throw a leg over the saddle and go. Stop the tedious sartorial critique. This isn't Vogue.
4. Hills and rain.
5. When every cyclist gets tarred with the same brush. Not all of us ignore red lights, pedal on the pavement or are responsible for general world atrocity. Similarly I'm not a fan of the "them versus us" dichotomy between some cyclists and other road users. Mutual respect, people.
What are your cycling loves and loathes? Feel free to share in the comments section below.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article