Good cycling quotes

So I have been reading various cycling things on the internet and was thinking about cycling quotes and good ones. I like the classic Lemond one of “it never gets easier you just go faster”, so what is your favourite and why?

I thought of that while riding my bike.
Albert Einstein.

“I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride it where I like!” – Freddy Mercury

I thought of that while riding my bike.
Albert Einstein
On the Theory of Relativity.

Cycling is like a church – many attend, but few understand.
Jim Burlant

And, from the late, great and much missed JMC;

If you’re not falling off, you’re not going fast enough

it’s not about the bike

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle :(

“its curtains for Karpets”

TDF commentator

“We’re not cool. None of us are hip.”

Padraig, BKW.

“I sometimes used to sit on my bike, weeping with the pain”

Eddy Merckx

“Ride a bike. Ride a Bike. Ride a bike.”

Fausto Coppi, when asked by a journalist to give advise about training

When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.

H G Wells

There are nine million bicycles in Beijing. That’s a fact.

Katie something or other.

“Socialism can only arrive by bicycle”

Jose Antonio Viera-Gallo Quesney

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

Arthur Conan Doyle

“Don’t buy upgrades; ride up grades” – Eddy Merckx

Stephen Roche, after hauling back to within 5 seconds of Pedro Delgado on La Plagne in 1987. He collapses with exhaustion and has to be revived with oxygen. As he come round he’s asked by a French journo if he is OK and replies:

“Oui, mais pas de femme toute de suite”

“The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles…when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones.”

The Third Policeman
Flann O’Brien

also

Merckz is better than you
Anon

‘Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.’
Tim Krabbe.

When asked if it was better technique to mash a big gear or spin a small gear, Eddy Merckx thought for a moment and said ‘Its better to spin a big gear.’

Here’s the routine I’d advise for the evening before a race: a pheasant with chestnuts, a bottle of champagne and a woman. – Jacques Anquetil

:-)

The Faster you go – the lighter you land – Jimmy Levan

And this by Steve Crandall

‘Chicks Dig Scars’ – samuri, around 1990 on alt.mountainbike.

And yet I receive not one penny from all those advertising campaigns using this phrase.

Mark Twain’s “You will not regret it, if you live” is I think the best of all. But “Melancholia is incompatible with bicycling” is good too

“The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.”
Ann Strong, Minneapolis Tribune, 1895

Love the curtains for Karpets one.

If it takes ten to kill you, I’ll take nine

Tom Simpson

Wasn’t it Anquetil who was asked

Do you take drugs?
Only when neccessary
How often is that?
Most days!

The first rule of cycling: Endeavour to look cool at all times.

Chris Boardman

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeus”

various, late 1980s.

Pain is temporary, quitting is forever.

“I still feel that variable gears are only for people over forty-five. Isn’t it better to triumph by the strength of your muscles than by the artifice of a derailer?”
Henri Desgrange

Can’t remember the source of this one, but it goes something like…

Never worry about being overtaken by a grey bearded old man.
Keep training and one day that will be you.

Here the notes in my laboratory journal cease. I was able to write the last words only with great effort. By now it was already clear to me that LSD had been the cause of the remarkable experience of the previous Friday, for the altered perceptions were of the same type as before, only much more intense. I had to struggle to speak intelligibly. I asked my laboratory assistant, who was informed of the self-experiment, to escort me home. We went by bicycle, no automobile being available because of wartime restrictions on their use. On the way home, my condition began to assume threatening forms. Everything in my field of vision wavered and was distorted as if seen in a curved mirror. I also had the sensation of being unable to move from the spot. Nevertheless, my assistant later told me that we had traveled very rapidly. Finally, we arrived at home safe and sound, and I was just barely capable of asking my companion to summon our family doctor and request milk from the neighbors.

Dr Albert Hoffman

It is, absolutely, without question, unequivocally, about the bike. Anyone who says otherwise is obviously a tw*twaffle.

In case of fatal accident, I beg of the spectators not to feel sorry for me. I am a poor man, an orphan since the age of eleven, and I have suffered much. Death holds no terror for me. This record attempt is my way of expressing myself. If the doctors can do no more for me, please bury me by the side of the road where I have fallen.

JENS’ BIG RING IS 56. HIS REAR CASSETTE IS 11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11-12.

JENS NO LONGER HAS A SHADOW BECAUSE HE DROPPED IT REPEATEDLY UNTIL IT CLIMBED INTO THE SAXO BANK TEAM CAR CLAIMING A STOMACH AILMENT AND RETIRED.

“She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life.”

and

“I finally concluded that all failure was from a wobbling will rather than a wobbling wheel.” Frances Willard Feminist cyclist ~1893, How I Learned To Ride The Bicycle

“As a rule, substantial weight is a reliable measure of high quality. The two exceptions to this rule are bicycles and women.” Pablo Picasso

Young riders pick a destination and go. Old riders pick a direction and go. – anon

The way I see it, we can look at our current situation in a couple of ways.
1: We are lost and we have no idea what we’re doing.
2: We’re on an adventure

Kazu Kibuishi

JENS NO LONGER HAS A SHADOW BECAUSE HE DROPPED IT REPEATEDLY UNTIL IT CLIMBED INTO THE SAXO BANK TEAM CAR CLAIMING A STOMACH AILMENT AND RETIRED.

I read that about 10 minutes ago and am still laughing!

“I don’t do it for the pleasure, I do it for the pain” L Armstrong

From today’s ride,

If you get over 40% (uni degree mark) in your first year you’re not riding your bike enough

for kennyp:

Jens Voigt has never been in a breakaway. But he has successfully dropped the peloton on a number of occasions.

Jens Voigt grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

Jens Voigt rides so fast during attacks, that he could circle the globe, hold his own wheel, and ride in his own draft. At least as long as he didn’t try to drop himself.

etc.

http://www.jensvoigtfacts.com/ (keep refreshing)

My little motto is…

Recycle, ride your bike again and again and again

This has got me out the house for several training rides when it would have been easier to stay in.

“The hardest thing about winter training is putting your shoes on.” Lance Armstrong.

BB

It never gets easier, you just go faster. To put it another way, per Greg Henderson: “Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.”

Cheers RealMan, brilliant stuff. I find when I’m having a bad day on the bike just saying “What would Jens do?” usually helps me grind up some big hills.

‘Hills are only as steep as you want them to be’ That was on a sticker I got free with MBUK about 100 years ago.
& from a Yeti T shirt I once had, ‘Faster and faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death’ Still love that one.