How (and why) I Started Cycling

I’ve had a few people ask, ok- so it was just one and a fellow cyclist at that, “Why’d you start cycling?”.

There are two reasons really. One- my car blew up. Turns out that if you don’t put water in them they do that sort of thing.

Two- the mirror.

Both of these were out of necessity. Granted one was the catalyst for the other, but that’s why.

There’s a little more to the how.

A friend let me borrow his LeMond for a three weeks while he was on vacation a couple years ago. I rode it probably a dozen times, my longest ride being about an hour. I enjoyed it and started looking around for some decently priced bikes on Craigslist and such. As summer dwindled I lost interest and didn’t consider a bike until this last winter (18 mos after my last ride on the LeMond).

Somewhere in those 18 months Tony Steward started this crazy blog, JoetoProCycling.com. I was intrigued and followed with distant interest- more curiosity than anything else.

Then I got my bike and started riding- and reading. I quickly skimmed through most of Tony’s now 25 pages of posts. The info was invaluable. There are two reasons: It’s from a guy just like me. (Literally- at the time JtoP started I was employed by a church, with 30-40 extra LBS on me, and looking for a hobby. Now I’m just packing 20-30 extra LBS.)

I won’t steal JtoP’s thunder too much- in fact I’d say go check it out regardless of where you are in the cycling.

Tony’s latest post is the second in a series of Getting Started posts designed to, wait for it, get started. Look for my addition to the comments if you want, and add your own too.