I was chatting to a group of guys on in the department a few days ago and one of them (who I don’t really know that well) commented that was I the guy that raced XC? Not really having done much racing in the past year, I said I rode anything off road, almost entirely based on what I fancied and thought would be most fun to be riding that day. This got a very confused look from the group, which turned out to be almost entirely relatively new track or road cyclists, not understanding that I rode bikes for something other than the sole purpose of competing!
Over the last few days I’ve ended up speaking to a few more cyclists, each saying they do some rides entirely for the purpose of training, one even admitted he dislikes Saturdays as he does endurance training!
Yes I do occasionally enjoy entering a local XC/CX race, and on the day may get quite competitive, but I never go out on the bike for a “training” only ride, each ride is a fun activity in itself! I even sold my road bike as I found that I preferred to ride my too small CX bike on road as it was more fun.
Am I the only one that has this attitude or was I just talking to a load of idiots?