Been reading “ST The Columns” and one of piers comments was that (paraphrasing here) he enjoys suffering on his bike out in the mud wind rain and hail but he has a physically easy job indoors and maybe if he had a hard job he’d be down the pub watching football on his days off.

I like to hurt myself while out on the bike too but then again I’m another desk jockey working <1meter from a radiator in a double glazed office with tea and biscuits on hand. I know lots of people differ on the uncomfortable sometimes painful parts of cycling I wonder if there is a correlation.

quick poll anyone?

Do you enjoy the mtb hardships of mud/bad weather/climbing/crashing/etc and do you have a (physically) easy indoor job? Do you have a tough job and prefer fair weather riding on manicured trails with uplifts? or am I talking piffle?

Well I enjoyed the “pain” of riding to work the other day in the pishing rain and your desk jockey job sounds identical to mine.

😉

Yeah… apart from the Buff 😀

Depends who am i trying to keep up with and how windy is San marino 😉
I think you may just know my answers

The older I get the harder i find it to do character building rides as I have enough tails to tell tbh and have run out of MTFU
Most weather looks worse from your armchair than from your saddle though- except wind I hate that

Do you enjoy the mtb hardships of mud/bad weather/climbing/crashing/etc and do you have a (physically) easy indoor job?

prefer easy downhilling and pootling along, but prefer bouncy trails to carefully manicured ones. Job is non-physical.

BUT, the satisfaction of getting there after a hard trip is better, whether “there” is the office, home, or tonight’s bivvy

Main job is non physical, but also started working in a very busy town centre boozer.

it has sapped my energy to ride, but prob will get used to it and then get back in the saddle.

Tell you what, people working in big busy pubs earn every frickin penny of the minimum wage they get!

Was going to say it looks like everyone here has a namby pamby deskjob but all those rufty tufty outdoors jobbers will all be erm, outside….working hard, digging up roads, building skyscrapers, blowing shit up etc…not sat in front of a pc perusing stw
Doh.

I rode 42 miles in torrential rain on Sunday, the rose tinted view of that ride still hasn’t kicked in, so it must have been bad. 😆

I used to be all about the suffering, especially out on the road bike. Must. Keep. Pushing. Harder.

But a recent health related wake-up call has forced me to reconsider. And now all I want to do is ride up, down and along with no pressure. In fact, I’m determined that I’m going to get back on the MTB next year to do just that.

I’m a soft-handed keyboard-botherer who likes a bit of controlled suffering, but tends to back off rather than going all out every ride. Personally I don’t really think there is a correlation, you’ve only got to look at how many posties or soldiers also love a bit of cycling.

A lot of the most prolific DH and BMX trail builders also do physical day jobs, even though you might think that getting busy with a spade is a busman’s holiday for them. We had one guy come to a dig day who is a landscape gardener and a sponsored masters DH racer, and I’ve never seen anyone work as hard.

Maybe it’s that the ones who are fittest due to not sitting down for eight hours a day tend to make riding look easy and bang on about it less? 😉

I have a pretty physical job. I’m lifting and carrying tons of stuff every day. It’s not outside but it’s certainly not in an office.
I mtb on a SS and I’m doing my favourite all time race on Sunday – the 3 Peaks cx.

I have an office job and tend to mix my riding. I enjoy my social riding for what it is, but I also enjoy the training rides too.

I am now three races into the cyclocross season and they are quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever done on a bike, yet also the most enjoyable. My last race wet, cold and muddy but I had great fun. In the last 12 months I have pushed myself really hard to get race fit and it has paid off as I am now getting good results and enjoying cycling more than ever.

at my size, cycling was never gonna be a easy sport/pastime to choose.

so yea Donk…… 😆

Outdoorsy job here, and still love the wet and muddy epics as much as anything else.

In my experience, people who work outside tend to become desensitised to the weather to a certain extent… accept it as a part of life and just get on with things, rather than being so bothered by it that they hide indoors when things look a bit damp on a day/evening off.

I work outdoors in all weather. I don’t mind putting myself through a bit of pain on a climb if it’s rewarded with a fun downhill. I’m not bothered if it starts raining or gets really muddy while I’m out on a ride but find it really hard to motivate myself to ride if it’s lashing down before I start.

I work in a fairly physical job, i’m a machinist in a production unit and as well as being on my feet 8.5hrs a day i’m also physically handling/moving stuff around constantly.
Also commute to work by bike all year round – although currently it’s only a 2 mile trip to work.
I’m not slow, but i’m not fast either, i enjoy the challenge of a climb and love the descents, although i’m not as good at them as i could/should be. Don’t mind mud (although it’s not that bad round here) or being wet if it rains when i’m out, but i must admit to bailing on a ride if it’s lashing it down when i get up (work excluded obviously!)
Oh yeah, detest wind as well.

to paraphrase greg lemond, it never gets easier you just get faster.

Depends what you mean by suffering. If suffering means crap weather and being out when few others are, then deffo yes. As long as the torso is warm, what else matters? If you mean total energy drop, twenty mile from home, fading light, being injured and all the rest of it, well… it wouldn’t be done through choice.

(I’m an academic so I guess that qualifies as desk-job).

probably piffle then

My moods vary. But there is an element of masochism in my riding.

I really enjoy a good death march across a soaking moor with a strong wind blowing hail so hard you can’t read the map as it is blown from your numb fingers and you haven’t actually ridden the bike for the last 5 miles because you are in an endless peatbog. But I had a nice cosy job sitting in cars and offices with just the occasional confrontation with mad clients to give a frisson of fear.

Death march too preferred here – and a desk job. Commute on the tube though is definietly not cushy or in any way comfortable.