The Club Ride

The club ride comes second only to spandex in bike culture. In case you are unfamiliar, a ‘club ride’ is when a bunch of like minded people get together in clothing of similar spandexivity, and ride their bicycles together.

Just like any other group of people it is mainly social. You roll along and chat about things you have in common – mostly bikes, the stupid things you have done on bikes, and the stupid things you plan to do on bikes, other peoples bikes, stupid things you saw other people do on bikes, and sometimes beer.

In addition to the social aspect there is also the safety aspect. You see, a redneck in a truck is a lot less likely to take on a whole pack of spandex clad cycling freaks (SCCF) than just one. I heard once that in a typical group of people in Boise that 1 of 4 had a concealed weapons permit, and of those usually about half were packing. So that’s one gun per 8 people. If you have a pack of say 30 SCCF that means there is an arsenal of 4 guns. Chew on that for a minute.

A variation of the club ride is called a ‘race team ride’. These rides are usually a little bit faster, and the participants get to act a little more arrogant and assholish. These are ‘training’ rides. Training is when you subject yourself to varying levels of discomfort in the hope of preparing yourself for the extreme discomfort of a race. This time of year they are usually ‘base training’ – that means you spend ridiculously long periods of time on your bike at a moderately uncomfortable pace in hopes that your butt will be molded to the shape of your bike seat so you will be more comfortable during race season (I just used butt and mold in the same sentence – ooooooghhh!). You subject yourself to discomfort because it is fun – ruminate on that one.

So the team I am on had its first race team ride a few weeks back. There were 32 people there (4 guns) – that is a lot. We had so many people (and by implication were so well armed) that we had few problems with traffic. Somehow I got assigned to ride at the front and try to keep everyone together. I know I was doing good, because I felt moderately uncomfortable the whole time.

I made sure to try and make it look like I was not uncomfortable, or only slightly uncomfortable – because that’s what bike racers do. Don’t want anyone to smell weakness. I also tried to talk like a bike racer – that is where you lie about how much you have been training, usually underestimating by about 40%. So if you rode say 100 miles you would say you only rode 60. You do this so if you get crushed during the training ride you have an excuse, or conversely, if you crush during the training ride everyone thinks you are beasty because you did it with so little prior training.

The ride went pretty well, 2 hours on our standard route around the golf course on the Emmett Highway. I think some people exceeded the moderately uncomfortable level, but so it goes. Some others extended their period of discomfort by continuing for a ‘long ride’. I’ll address that subject another day.

So I guess we were a group of armed(?) liars that like to hurt themselves for fun, out for a little bike ride. Think twice before you honk at that group of cyclists on Hill Rd.