Why I Hate Cyclists

Ok, maybe ‘hate’ isn't exactly the right word.  This blog might be a bit controversial, and not surprisingly given that I am a cyclist myself, but hear me out.

My motto has become “two wheels are better”, and I genuinely believe that life is more fun when on two wheels.  Plus there are all the environmental and economic benefits that come with getting more bums on bikes, but that’s the boring stuff.  Riding a bike is just fun!  But this increase in popularity comes with consequences, and this is where I have a bit of the old inner turmoil going on.

It’s been said for a few years now that “cycling is the new golf”, actually I’m pretty sure that I coined the phrase myself over a post-ride brew with mates – can I claim royalties for that??   Cycling as an activity has clearly gained hugely in popularity since LA brought the Tour de France into the living rooms of Australians at ungodly hours, many for the first time.  Despite us copping the abuse of bogan’s far and wide, cyclists aren’t going anywhere either, figuratively speaking of course.   Literally speaking we are going everywhere, and in increasing numbers.

Old Willunga Hill at 2015 TDU Stage 5

I’ve just spent the last week in Adelaide, aka ‘Radelaide’, during the Tour Down Under, enjoying the racing and the great riding that South Australia has to offer.  Not unexpectedly, I was not the only cyclist in attendance, and it was great to see so many people enjoying the sport that I have grown to love over the years.  Apparently at Saturday’s stage there was around 120,000 spectators on Old Willunga Hill, and the atmosphere was simply awesome.  However I’m becoming a bit worried that the sport of cycling is starting to become uncool like the sport of Triathlon did.  Before the triathletes get upset, It’s ok, I’m allowed to say this because I used to be a triathlete myself.  I know, shocking.  I hope you were sitting down.  Back in my day, triathlon was cool, man.  Then somewhere along the line, everybody seemed to be doing a triathlon, and every race had turned into a mass participation event.  Fortunately by then I had become sick of swimming five times a week to try and improve my 50m time by 0.5 of a second, and had migrated over to the one true discipline of cycling.  Am I wearing rose coloured glasses?  Am I being a snob?  Could it have been that I actually wasn’t that cool after all?  Perhaps.

Nah fuck that I was cool as shit.

So back to cycling.  Cycling as a sport was historically a Euro-centric activity, steeped in tradition, culture and lingo.  As we all know in Straya, anything Euro is just cool.  Clothes, cars, architecture, food, music: the Europeans have got their shit together.  Euro sport is cool too, which meant that cycling was also cool.

COOL

NOT COOL

If you are the type of cyclist (like me), who shaves his legs, wears lycra and rides an expensive carbon fibre bike, you have most likely heard of The Rules.  The Rules are a tongue in check list of well, rules for doing cycling right.  Now to be honest I’m not a big fan of The Rules, but have been riding bikes for long enough to have a list of stuff that, in my mind, is stuff you just shouldn’t do.  Some of these things are about how you look, and some of these things are about how you act and how you interact.  When you do something for long enough you don’t need a list of do’s and don’ts to refer to, you know them through experience.  While at the Tour Down Under I saw many rule infringements.

I think this is what I am getting at.  As cycling has become more and more popular in Australia, and has become more of a mass participation activity, the number of cyclists that don’t realise/recognise The Rules (for want of a better definition) has also increased significantly.  I’m sometimes embarrassed by how cyclists here look, act and interact.  Is it any wonder that fluro-vested tradies mock us, when we clip-clop around in clown shoes with sweat dripping everywhere and lycra bulges that most of us would really prefer not to see?  I mock us!  How can we expect Shaneoo on his way to work in his ute to not do the same?

I’ve said sometimes that I wish golf was still the new golf and cycling wasn’t as popular as it is now, but of course I don’t really mean it.  Despite the consequences, I still like seeing more cyclists on our roads.  It sure beats having more cars.  I don’t hate cyclists, but sometimes I do cringe a bit. 

Maybe I'm just a wanker.

Six Months, No Regrets

It's already been six months since I left a good job at a software development company with no real idea of what I was going to do next, and lately I've been reflecting on what has happened in that time and what may come.  As I've matured (what I really mean is as I've gotten older, I still have the mind of a 15 year old) I've gotten pretty comfortable in "listening to my gut", and six months ago my gut was telling me to move on if I wanted to find happiness again.  I knew deep down that if I didn't introduced some risk into my life then I would have languished in the same position, unchanged and unhappy.  Leaving my job was the push I needed to start figuring out what the next phase of my life was going to be like.  Necessity is the mother of invention!

Of course I was very fortunate to be in a position where it was possible to make such a decision, and extremely lucky to have a partner who trusted me enough to let me do it.  That I had her full support was a huge weight lifted off my mind, and it made me even more committed to insuring that I worked things out.  I also knew that I could have fairly easily found another good job in the same industry, but I didn't want to "waste" this opportunity.  I certainly didn't want to be in the same position all over again in another couple of years, sitting at a desk in an office, staring at a computer screen, wondering.

Now I'd be lying if I said, six months down the track, I had everything figured out.  However, I am very lucky to be surrounded by an amazing circle of people, and one of those stepped up and offered me an opportunity to try something completely new.  It was very humbling, I know he didn't have to do it, could have very easily hired someone off the street with far more experience than me who could have 'hit the ground running', but he didn't.  The fact that he did that was amazing enough, doubly so when you consider that the job he was offering was in a new venture for him also.  Starting a business comes with enough risk as it is, let alone hiring some hubbard to bugger it up for you!

So for the last couple of months I have been working in hospitality, and learning a lot in the process.  It feels great to be doing something completely different and hands on, and I can honestly say I enjoy going to work again.  The response from people I know has also been overwhelmingly positive.  When I left my previous job, I wasn't really worried about what people would think, but I did expect some to think I was being an idiot.  If those people exist, they haven't said so to my face!   

I can't say what the future will bring, but I am confident about it.  I don't need to know all the answers at the moment, it's enough to be able to say that six months on I have no regrets.