TCI Friday – Your Ideal Bike
To love something is sometimes to be dissatisfied with it. You get a sense that the object of your love could be better, if only it could change in the ways that seem obvious to you. Why do bikes…
Latest Posts Page One Op-Ed Classified Talk
Video – Nowt Daft
I don't know who these guys are, and I don't care.
Here are the things I love about this one. First, just a couple chuckleheads making videos of their riding. No sponsorships. No crews. Just…
Terroir
If you don’t love bikes, really love them, stop reading now. The things I’m about to say will sound nuts. Know that, in addition to spending 10,000 hours riding bikes, I’ve also spent decades…
Paceline Tandem: Scott Holz of Specialized
This week is a tandem episode and my guest is Scott Holz, a senior program manager for Specialized. I met Scott back in the mid-aughts when he first joined Specialized as a fit instructor for their…
A Useful Review: the Topeak Power Lever X
I’ve mounted several tires recently and also have had to work on several chains; both of these operations can be frustrating. The number of sub-par tire levers on the market can be compared to the…
Hey, Just Ride 109: Muscle Memory
The rhythms of my ride appear to be on autopilot as I crank my bike up the sweeping left-hand turn and hit the long straightaway that steepens in grade before a final brief, stiff wall, and a turn…
I am …
Change your mindset and change your life. Yes, I hear you … enough with the trite sayings. I agree that often these statements are misused, but they also contain truth if accurately applied. Please,…
Revolting 161
White Whales and Sinking Ships. All of life is a struggle between our best intentions and the predations of time. Will we land our great white whale before the veil falls and we return to dust? Or…
TCI Friday – Save Me the Sonnets
They say love is blind, but maybe they haven't had a long-term relationship, because let me tell you, over time, love comes to have 20/20 vision. I am keenly aware of my wife's shortcomings…
Featured Posts
Becoming a Cyclist on the Long Way Home
“When did you get into cycling?” he asked invitingly. Our wheels hummed side-by-side down a quiet rural highway somewhere in Wyoming, or maybe Nebraska, it’s all a blur. I privately hazarded a guess…
A Good Time at the Dollar Store
I spent several hours in Rustee's yard, organizing myself in the rain-slush-snow. My bike bags kept filling up with water as I packed them, but I happened to have a large sea sponge in my car so I…
Part of Me
In my dream, I am riding up a steep climb on a narrow road winding through redwoods, barely able to turn the pedals. But I am happy. Ecstatic, really. I am one with my bike, an extension of my body,…
To Love and To Be In Love
I met my wife on a college camping trip in 1992. At the time I was trying not to spend the week drunk beyond imagining. A friend convinced me to sign up for this trip through the community service…
The Perfect Sport
I've been a cyclist most of my life. My life has had little permanence, but cycling has been as close to permanent as anything short of my parents. Cycling didn't care whether I rode or not. My bike…
The Corrections
A thing I wrote years ago for Red Kite Prayer. On this Monday, when the words are all stuck in between my ears, refusing to find my fingertips, a good reminder that sometimes it helps not to try so…
Crash Therapy
The conversation in my head while riding Bull Run last weekend in Moab was dawdling along something like this:
“I’m riding really well. I’m gonna try to keep it mellow, keep from redlining cause…
When You’re Uncool – Riding with Dave Stoller
Back in 2016 my friend James Winchester pulled together an incredible number of people, bikes and machines to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the venerated Italian brand, Masi Bicycles.
…
Letter from the Editors
The year draws to a close, whether you're done with it or not, and 2022 was a banger here at TCI. Readership grew throughout the year. More people listened to our podcasts. Subscribers subscribed,…
Lost and Unlost
Crater Lake. The Pacific Coast. Ghost towns in the high desert. That's cool, but how can you do so much riding alone? This question is usually followed by a comment like "you're so courageous." I…
The Shirt Off Our Backs
A call to commerce! An unsubtle, attention-grabbing shout out! A gentle plea.
Please witness the arrival of the brand-new, classic Cycling Independent Black t-shirt.
Excuse the smirking…
Letter from the Editors
Hello Friends,
Just us, checking in from the end of summer (unless you're one of our Southern Hemisphere readers...we're not trying to be hemispherist). It's been a busy time for us, Padraig…
Just To Be Alive
I know just enough about bikes to know that I don’t know s#*$ about bikes. And I don’t want the mountain of what I don’t know to ruin the truth of what I do know … which is I f*@%ing love riding my…
The Crash Samaritan
You open your eyes. Disoriented. Dirty. Details are sharp but nonsensical. Rising dust motes. The tick of a spinning freewheel. A dog with five white whiskers licking your arm. The smell of Christmas…
Introducing: Turtle Wandering
A good friend of The Cycling Independent, Elizabeth Allen, has started a really cool new video blog series called Turtle Wandering. In her words, this is the description:
"It is about the places…
Non-Zero Sum Gains
I have been thinking an awful lot about cycling advocacy and inclusivity. Why? Because I dream of a self-powered world, one in which all citizens glide around on a bicycle of one flavor or another. I…
A Year of Shelter
Life changed for us 365 days ago. I doubt you or anyone you know would have been willing to guess that the life you're living today was even possible. It was certainly beyond my imagination, and I…
What We Would Say
I chose cycling because it's the only time I don't feel like a klutz.I chose cycling because I can't stick the ball. I chose cycling because I didn't play team sports.I chose cycling because I'm…
We Need You On This Ride
I'll be brief.
Our primary goal at The Cycling Independent is to make our community as large as we possibly can. Part of that is selfish. We can't continue without your financial support. This is…
Editor’s Letter
Right now you might be thinking, "How can this be an editor’s letter on a website? This isn't print!"
You very well should be thinking that because we’re not just another website with a bunch of…
The Cycling Independent: a Statement of Purpose
The way I tell the story, my love of magazines, of periodic publications, began with Skateboarder Magazine in 1977, but that’s not actually true. I can trace it further back, to Boy’s…
New York to Provincetown
A single day can feel like a month. Processing a massive ride afterwards is like staring at a Salvador Dali painting. Fifty miles dissolves into a blurry moment.
Turns out it took a village…
Paceline Tandem: Scott Holz of Specialized
This week is a tandem episode and my guest is Scott Holz, a senior program manager for Specialized. I met Scott back in the mid-aughts when he first joined Specialized as a fit instructor for their…
Page One
Video – Nowt Daft
I don't know who these guys are, and I don't care.
Here are the things I love about this one. First, just a couple chuckleheads making videos of their riding. No sponsorships. No crews. Just…
Terroir
If you don’t love bikes, really love them, stop reading now. The things I’m about to say will sound nuts. Know that, in addition to spending 10,000 hours riding bikes, I’ve also spent decades…
Hey, Just Ride 109: Muscle Memory
The rhythms of my ride appear to be on autopilot as I crank my bike up the sweeping left-hand turn and hit the long straightaway that steepens in grade before a final brief, stiff wall, and a turn…
Op-Ed
TCI Friday – Your Ideal Bike
To love something is sometimes to be dissatisfied with it. You get a sense that the object of your love could be better, if only it could change in the ways that seem obvious to you. Why do bikes…
TCI Friday – Save Me the Sonnets
They say love is blind, but maybe they haven't had a long-term relationship, because let me tell you, over time, love comes to have 20/20 vision. I am keenly aware of my wife's shortcomings…
Take it With You
The yell from behind sounded too close to have been caused by anyone but me. The reason and its simplicity resulted from the fact that our group had stretched into a thread of single-file riders as…
Classified
A Useful Review: Crank Bros. Cigar Plug Tool Kit
I’ve got a couple of devices for installing tubeless plugs, but one of my favorites is the Cigar Tool Plug Kit and CO2 Head from Crank Bros.
The kit comes with a knurled aluminum cap into which…
Road Tubeless: a Solution
I suspect many people who have any experience with road tubeless have concluded that term is an oxymoron, like postal service or jumbo shrimp, and I can’t blame them.
A few weeks back I had three…
A Useful Review – The Walz Wool Cap
It’s that time of year when you might want something more than a helmet on your head. I tend to wear a cycling cap under a road helmet, and I’m not sure if that’s because I think it looks good or…
Talk
Paceline Tandem: Scott Holz of Specialized
This week is a tandem episode and my guest is Scott Holz, a senior program manager for Specialized. I met Scott back in the mid-aughts when he first joined Specialized as a fit instructor for their…
Revolting 161
White Whales and Sinking Ships. All of life is a struggle between our best intentions and the predations of time. Will we land our great white whale before the veil falls and we return to dust? Or…
Paceline Podcast 399
Bikes lost—well, not so much lost, as ones we sold off or let slip from our grasp and which we, if given a magic time machine, we might not have parted our way with.
Show…