Cycling Truths #3

Once you’re on the good bike, there’s nowhere to hide

During the long winter months, due to bad weather and poor road conditions, many of us ride a bike which is functional, dependable and, let’s be honest, cheaper; the last thing you want is all that grit and grime from your local roads eating away at your good bike. While your pride and joy is greased up, polished and wrapped in cotton wool in the shed, you clock up mileage on the winter hack until, come April, you can hold back no longer and decide it’s time to unleash the beast. 

Jumping onto your good bike after a season spent riding your trusty winter warrior is like trading in your Ford Focus for a sleek Italian Maserati. It feels quick, responsive and twitchy, like a thoroughbred chomping at the bit, and you instantly feel like a cyclist again.

The problem with the good bike is that there’s nowhere to go from there. All winter you’ve consoled yourself about your lack of pace with the knowledge that the good bike will add an extra couple of miles an hour to your sluggish plod. How can you possibly be expected to ride quickly on something made from aluminium, or steel, of all things – that’s crazy talk. 

All will be well once you wheel out your carbon framed work of art.

Or, alternatively, you’re now riding the good bike and you’re faced with a very visible illustration of your fundamental lack of talent. 

Compared to the winter bike you feel quick, but the mountain of stats from your on-board computed suggests otherwise. You briefly clutch at straws, wondering if perhaps your bike computer isn’t calibrated properly (or some such desperate notion) before realising that, like a bad workman, there’s no point blaming your tools. 

If anything needs recalibrating it’s your legs (or your expectations, perhaps); to your profound disappointment, this is as quick as you’re getting. 

Once you’re on the good bike, there’s nowhere to hide.