A good friend yesterday was saying to me that the headline article for Men's Style magazine at the moment is "Why cycling is the new golf" and I wondered if I've been pulled into the craze (admittedly while I browsed the web for the replacement for my stolen
I've certainly been cycling for a while, even commuting to work off and on for 10 years but in the last 6 months I've been cycling more than I ever had. Initially I started riding again for cost saving and health reasons. Firstly the cost, the public transport from my suburb is fantastic but for the distance I needed to travel it seemed silly to be spending so much on travel every day (especially when I already had a bike). Secondly health/fitness, there was a fairly big ad campaign (at least in Queensland) about keeping your weight down featuring parents not being able to run after their children and while I wasn't at that stage with the birth of our littleone I wanted to make sure I didn't get there.
Now, however there are some different reasons I head our on the bike more and more, maybe this cycling golf analogy isn't that far off and maybe I'm part of it. Quite a few mornings I meet friends for a ride and a coffee (in a lot of cases the littleone comes along for the ride). Sure we could just go out for coffee in the morning but without the ride there just wasnt the motivation to get up extra early. In many cases I wouldn't normally get the chance to catch up with during the week otherwise.
Some of my oldest school friends started cycling in bunch rides on the weekend and while I'd been on the occasional one here and there it was never a regular thing. It's regular enough now that it's a weekly event and my reason for going is rather selfish (but also largely while cycling works for me for fitness), I can be a little bit competitive (that's also probably an understatement) and with that I like winning. Somewhere along the way I started being able to keep up and then beat the pack on the rides (especially up the hills, which are still my least favorite part of the ride) and this has just spurred me on. The thrill of the being close to the front has been a big driver in going for more rides, trying to make sure I can stay at the front.
So in reality (and reading back over this post) cycling has turned into my "golf" alernative using it to catch up with friends and for the bragging rights at the coffee shop at the end. Maybe I should switch back to HI-FI gear though, I think it might be a cheaper indulgence.
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