I'm not as young as I used to be.

Keep your thumbs wrapped round the grips.

Keep your thumbs wrapped round the grips.

Except when climbing. Serious, if you can't stop the front from wandering go to a hook grip, it changes the forearm angle and enables you to pull hard down and back.

Old Ken told me that and I still use it (may be different now on LLS bikes, don't know, never ridden one)

Maybe road (or now gravel too) orientated. Old boy on one of my first group rides asked me which foot I kicked a football with. Then told me when riding along to focus on my other leg, and my 'good leg' would follow along and do the right thing. 35 years later I still think of him and that comment nearly every ride.

I never did get to look as cool as the guys on the cover of MBUK!

That cyclists become more and more sucked in by marketing every year. And more and more affected by fashion.

Falling off hurts less if you don't fall off.

Bikes made for racing on, don't always make the best bikes for the average punter.

That cyclists become more and more sucked in by marketing every year. And more and more affected by fashion.

Anything developed when you were starting out cycling was the right thing for the job, everything thats come along since is fashion and marketing, right?

Bikes made for racing on, don’t always make the best bikes for the average punter.

See also chainrings and cassettes.

Grease all the moving parts. Except for the braking bits.

Speed helps.

I can use bikes and cycling as an analogy for almost anything.

Secure your tools and particularly boots in the back of your tipper van.

Fitness is only rented, never owned.

i have forget nearly everything i have learned.

but one thing sticks with me.

you get the same buzz every time you let your brakes off and fly downhill
got the buzz as a 10 year old. get the same buzz as a 57 year old.

If you can’t fully commit then don’t try or there’s a good chance it will end badly.

You develop a 'spidey-sense' that that car there is going to underestimate the speed you are going round this roundabout and pull out on you. Consequently, you find yourself preempting all sorts of life-threatening shenanigans.

Change into an easier gear before you realise you need one

Put your money in the working parts of the bike.

There's (almost) always someone faster than you, so don't worry about it.

Don't judge a ride by statistics. This works both before and after the ride.

A trail called "Rollercoaster" will likely have more climbing than you expect.

That feature will still be there next week, and the week after, so don't beat yourself up if you're not feeling it.

Deore is fine, anything more is nice, but mostly just show.

Your fastest mate will always be riding a 10 year old sack of shit, with seized pivots and 1 working brake. There's something to learn there.

Less is more.

Less gears
Less weight
Less squish

More fun
More fit
More fast (generally, off-road, and excluding ebikes!)

Bikes made for racing on, don’t always make the best bikes for the average punter.

So true.

It's always worth getting out for a ride.

A bike that was fun to ride 3 years ago is still fun to ride today, no matter what new toys have come along since.

Wearing the right kit makes all the difference. But sadly it's not always the kit you think you need in the car park/your back garden before you start riding.

Keeping on top of basic routine maintenance saves a load of hassle on the trail/in the workshop.

Bonkings not fun.

Cycling makes you hungry.

Making do with and enjoying what i have and not falling for every single new marketing ploy. I’m not sure how some mountain bikes have got to 10k. Buying good bike clothing.

Fitness is only rented, never owned.

It's amazing how different the attitude to "fitness" there is between the folks who do it for a living, and punters. You often hear of folks like Greg Minaar who will reveal in interviews that he hasn't been on a bike "In Months" in the off season, or that folks will stress endless over a single race coming in 5 months, when pros are effectively racing every weekend, sometimes everyday...

It took me a long time to learn this

Ride your bike for fun first and foremost not for training.

Mudguards make sense however bad you think they look.

That most other riders are faster than me.

Mudguards make sense however bad you think they look.

The longer the better.

No matter how bad your feeling a bike ride can only make things better.
And any day on your bike is a good day.

You never don't feel better after a bike ride.

I have this as a spreadsheet name on the front of my laptop. It's a list of dates, weather, type and duration of ride, how I felt at the start (usually reluctant or very reluctant) how I felt after (always great).
So when I look out of the window and say "nah" I can always find a colder, wetter day when I felt the same, went out and came back happy.

^^What Stevenmenmuir and bigJohn said.

and...

If it fits ride it.

It's not about the bike,it's all in the mind.

Miles givsya Smiles.

Disagree, many times I've felt worse after a bike ride.

For those of us that still use inner tubes

After removing flat inner tube check inside of tyre at least twice for embedded thorns , metal, glass, stones etc......which leads onto I wish I'd a brought along more than one inner tube with me!

Cleaning your chain and cassette is always worth the hassle

You often hear of folks like Greg Minaar who will reveal in interviews that he hasn’t been on a bike “In Months” in the off season, or that folks will stress endless over a single race coming in 5 months, when pros are effectively racing every weekend, sometimes everyday…

Related to this, many folk will spend hours online stressing over every last component or worrying if they've got the "right" gear ratio for a certain hill rather than actually...riding the bike.

That cyclists become more and more sucked in by marketing every year. And more and more affected by fashion.

But have you seen / do you remember what we were wearing and riding in 1990-91? : ) At least the fashions have changed to something a little less garish.

Those little key loops inside camelbacks- use them for your car keys

Being basically fit and confident on a bike is a far better life than relying on a car for transport.

It's not about the bike. The bike detail is just a fine tune on the experience and/or a separate point of design and technical interest - the important thing is to get out and have the right attitude towards the riding.

The further you ride the more emotive the experience can get. Sounds like guff but there's something about being on a bike through dawn until after dusk that I get a lot from and repeating that on a multi-day ride only increases that feeling.

You're a happier rider when you understand what you want and what works for you, rather than listening to brands who are telling what you need.

Grant Petersen, Jeff Jones and Jan Heine are more right than they get credit for.

I'm massively suspicious of almost all bike industry carbon fibre products.

It doesn't get easier, you just get quicker.

Shake Dry jackets are pretty amazing - bone dry at the cafe on Saturday's ride and jacket was bone dry when I went to put it back on after tea and cake....

The other thing that constantly amazes me is how crap most people are at fixing punctures on group road rides, it should only take 1-2 mins to swap an inner tube assuming nothing goes badly wrong.

One close pass can completely ruin an otherwise pleasant ride.

One close pass can completely ruin an otherwise pleasant ride.

I've just got used to ignoring them - no point letting it ruin your ride...

It's not the close pass, that ruins your ride, it's your response to it, that does that :), forget about it move on.

Yeah, very true. I'm pretty good at ignoring it most of the time, but the odd one still manages to get under my skin.

Beer gets stronger at the end of a ride.

Yeah was just coming on to say, from my daily commutes, you just have to trust the cars approaching from behind aren't going to mow you down while simultaneously accepting the possibility that they might.

For me, one of the ‘formative’ elements of cycling is the bonk/knock/misery of riding home after completely running out of energy on a long ride. I can count multiple tales of abject grovelling after 40+ years of cycling - I once insisted stopping about 2 miles from home to visit a shop as I didn’t think I’d make it home 🤣 Once you’ve been there, you recognise the symptoms and just prepare for the long, slow grovel home as it often felt like a winter right of passage before fitness returns and the warmer days of spring. I’ve also pushed people most of the way home. It’s also resulted in countless amounts of ribbing and piss-takes from my buddies, both give and take.

I’ve also been with less experienced riders who also don’t want to appear to want to enjoy their ‘right of passage’. We still laugh at the guy who insisted we divert back via Basingstoke station so he could take the train back to Farnborough rather than to a nearby cafe where we suggested he stopped, ate something and ride home slowly.

A better bike won't make me a better rider, too many bikes and too much money spent before I finally admitted this

RE bonking, one of the biggest personal lessons I've learned my be changing riding and eating patterns to be able to ride with far slower changes in energy levels. To the point where I see gels and the like as one of the biggest mis-sells of the bike industry. Sold by the 100s on counter tops in so many shops, the number of riders riding at an intensity where they're a better idea than normal food is very low. The mcdonalds wrapper/redbull cans of trailside litter too.

Every 3rd snot rocket will land on your shoulder

The fact that padded shorts can do as much harm as good, or at least they're not needed for a few hour's ride and the longer the ride the more problematic they can be.

that singlespeeders that boast of having a bike with nearly nothing to go wrong on it, are the ones that can make a trailside faff of epic proportions when they break something!

that hooning a rigid bike with modern geometry over silly stuff, makes you smile like a 6 year old jumping off homemade ramps on a grifter

if you are loosing your mojo, stop doing it for bit, or find a new place to ride, new folks to ride with

Do Not check your disc/pad spacing by spinning you wheel really fast and then sticking your hand in to adjust to the calliper!

For me, one of the ‘formative’ elements of cycling is the bonk/knock/misery of riding home after completely running out of energy on a long ride. I can count multiple tales of abject grovelling after 40+ years of cycling – I once insisted stopping about 2 miles from home to visit a shop as I didn’t think I’d make it home 🤣

Been there, done that!
Once I fell in through the door and ate a tin of rice pudding followed by a tin of custard. Straight out of the tins.

the bike industry will always wait for the beardy weirdies to suss out stuff before nicking: the wheel size, the geometry, the fork offsets the suspension design etc.. and making it "the next best thing"

That if you have warm and dry hands and feet then riding in poor conditions is actually quite fun. I was reminded of this yesterday in the driving rain and slop.

the bike industry will always wait for the beardy weirdies to suss out stuff before nicking: the wheel size, the geometry, the fork offsets the suspension design etc.. and making it “the next best thing”

But...Standards!! Comes the cry the cheap seats. You can't have it both ways, either bikes improve or we carry on riding bikes with the same dimensions that roadies were using 25 years ago, and must never move.

Ride the bike you enjoy, not the one you think you should have

Every 3rd snot rocket will land on your shoulder

As long as it's yours, and not somebody else's,  I don't have a problem with that.

The fact that padded shorts can do as much harm as good, or at least they’re not needed for a few hour’s ride and the longer the ride the more problematic they can be

Yep, threw mine in a bin three days into a multi-day trip in 1992 - and never worn them since. Learned that a sweat soaked bacterial sponge pressed tight against my ringpiece wasn't the way to go.

Even if I cycle all day, I'm still able to eat more calories than what I've burnt off 😬

Pee when you can, not when you have to.

- Singlespeeding makes you a better rider - not necessarily a fitter or stronger rider - but it makes you learn to carry momentum and to look further ahead up the route or trail to see what obstacles are coming up.....

- Often the most fun bikes are the least expensive or least well equipped bikes

- if you finish a ride and you are completely famished, you didn't fuel well enough during the ride..

- You really don't need a full face helmet for Thetford (or an e-bike)

@spooky_b39

Less is more

...unless you're talking about cake.

Controversial as this may seem N+1 isn’t really necessary.

And you don’t really need to rotate chains all the time.

– You really don’t need a full face helmet for Thetford (or an e-bike)

You don't even need a mountain bike....

Less is more

…unless you’re talking about cake.

I've migrated onto cooked breakfasts - a full English at the cafe stop...

Cleaning dog muck off your tyres before taking your bike for a service does lead to a better welcome from the mechanic!

When removing Shimano bleed-pots, they can empty themselves in less time than it takes to figure out you've not put the plug in.

– if you finish a ride and you are completely famished, you didn’t fuel well enough during the ride..

You’ve obviously never ridden far or hard enough 🤣

40 years ago, ‘sports nutrition’ was a distant concept - used to ride with guys like John Woodburn, ex-LEJOG record holder where going out all day with more than 1 bottle was considered ‘soft’

where going out all day with more than 1 bottle was considered ‘soft’

Christ,that's most of my club mates. #partcamel but not as attractive 🤣🙃

Good tyres and brake pads are always worth it

Riding trousers are the best invention since disc brakes and dropper posts

Yeah was just coming on to say, from my daily commutes, you just have to trust the cars approaching from behind aren’t going to mow you down while simultaneously accepting the possibility that they might.

Schrodingers commute?

There's always someone fitter and/or faster than you.

Related to that...
Blingy gear ≠ good rider

Tubeless tyres are the best thing ever (if you live in an area with lots of thorn and gorse)

I've learnt: Never pay RRP for anything bike related. Shop around if urgent (especially ebay), otherwise wait for sales.

Things I have learnt about cycling:

1) This time of year (Dec - Feb) it is very easy to lose motivation and pile on the pounds/lose all fitness
2) Obsessive cleaning of your bike is NOT necessary
3) Bonking feels horrible and eating/drinking appropriately is a small price to pay to avoid THAT feeling
4) Being outside is as important as riding my bike