10 Ways to Ruin a Ride

Once learned, riding a bike is so easy that it’s part of a common idiomatic expression about something that’s easy to do. Another thing that I’ve found it’s easy to do is ruin a ride with a simple, mostly avoidable mistake. Here are some of the ways I’ve pulled it off.

1. Forgot my shoes – If you’re not careful, bike riding can become equipment intensive. You might need a helmet, gloves, pump, repair kit, glasses, a computer of some sort, food, water bottle and even shoes. Once I was riding an event that started across town. I jumped in the car with my buddy to get to the (not so) grand depart and realized halfway there I didn’t have my bike shoes. I briefly considered taking on the 50-mile course in flip flops and then alerted my friend to the problem. So we started a few minutes behind everyone else. It wasn’t exactly Pedro Delgado at the 1989 Tour, but I felt badly about it. Not so badly, mind you, that I haven’t done it a few other times since.
2. Dropped a friend – I’d love to tell you that I’ve always been an upstanding member of the cycling community, punctilious in my behavior and devoted to the comradery endemic to this noble pursuit. But of course, I haven’t. Few things in cycling have made me feel ashamed, but dropping a friend is one of them. What causes this? Ego? Inattention? A fundamental breakdown of the social contract? I am likely guilty of each of them at some point in my history. Nearly all of my friends have been gracious in their forgiveness of this sin, when it has transpired, but it’s a big one in my book, and a quick way to take all that prideful pedaling and flush it down the karmic toilet.
3. Under-dressed – I run warm, and so I am usually wearing one layer of clothing less than my companions. Of course, getting dressed in certain weathers is a crapshoot anyway, but spending four hours in the cold wind with one less garment than you really needed is a good way to come to terms with the tacit dominance of nature and the hubris of thinking you’re “tough.”
4. Over-dressed – There’s an inverse function to under-dressing, born of fear. If I’ve not been riding very much and thus am out of touch with the weather of the moment, or I’ve recently under-dressed and am still stinging from the lesson, then I might pull on one too many articles of clothing, a pair of gloves that’s too heavy, a hat I don’t need. The truism that you can ‘always take clothing off, but you can’t put on clothes you don’t have’ holds, except when you have so much extra that you run out of places to stick it, so then you’re overheated AND you have jackets and hats and gloves and things bulging out of every pocket, and it’s annoying as all hell. But then, I might just be easily annoyed.
5. Wore see-through shorts – I’m not the most modest, but when your companions refuse to ride behind you because your bib shorts have done one too many rides and the Lycra has become transparent, and they just don’t wanna stare at your butt crack anymore, well it weighs on you. I mean, once you’re done laughing about it.
6. Didn’t bring enough water – Regular readers will know I’m not the most together cyclist (see item 1 above), but quite how I managed to bring one bottle to a five-hour, summertime ride is anyone’s guess. Then, upon discovering my mistake, I thought, “Oh, I’ll be fine.” I wasn’t fine. I’ve done this more than once, a mix of scatteredness and false confidence that nearly always ends in tears.
7. Didn’t know the route, and really needed to know the route – As I’m working my way through this list, the level of my persistent carelessness is becoming more and more clear. When you’ve committed to an all-day ride in a place you don’t know, having the route is critical to success. Back in the day, of course, we carried cue sheets, often inscrutable paper guides that might, if properly deciphered, get you to a finish line. In the modern day, we entrust navigation to all manner of little computers, which, if not fully or adequately charged can leave you down a dirt road in another state, staring at a crossroads and wondering if you’ll see your family again.
8. Got in a conflict with a driver/walker – Human beings competing for the use of a constrained physical space will sometimes come into conflict. It’s a tale as old as time. These interactions seldom have winners, and I know, because I’ve had loads of them. Worse perhaps than the original conflict is the emotional hangover, the incessant churning through the details of the conflagration without ever really being able to resolve whether I was right or wrong. Spoiler: I was probably wrong.
9. Failed to charge my lights – If (as in item 7) you are depending on a piece of technology to get you home, you need to be able to depend on that technology. If a GPS device is required to get you out of rural Vermont, a set of reasonable lights might be what you need to get you the last five miles to your home, even if you know the way. I know people who carry backup batteries and lights and all manner of redundancy. I’m not that person, and so sometimes I have walked my bike out of the pitch-black woods in hopes of retaining two intact collar bones.
10. Stared at my computer the whole time – I know lots of people who love data. They don’t ride if Strava doesn’t know about it. I am perhaps too simple to make great use of all those numbers. I become fixated, and then I’m staring at a digital readout rather than noticing the flora and fauna. I’m berating myself for failing to maintain a reasonable average speed rather than listening to my body. In essence, I become overwhelmed and stop riding my bike, riding the computer instead, which is not what I’m after. Ever.

This piece actually started off as 50 Ways to Ruin a Ride and given more time and a limitless claim on your attention, I’m confident I could have written it. Instead, I’ll leave you with these ten and invite you to chime in, below, with the ones you think I missed.