tisdag 11 september 2012

I want to ride my bicycle

Soundtrack: Queen - Bicycle race

My wife's former classmate has started mountain biking.. I got his permission to use a text where he describes how 'fun' it is. This is a free translation/modification of the original text written in Finnish.


"You really shouldn’t start mountain biking.

There is really nothing fun about biking anyway, to call it a pleasure is just wrong – it’s messy.

If I go riding with buddies, they usually go way too hard already from the start – besides what’s this about riding early on weekends? On an early weekend morning there’s the obvious risk of some sort of hangover, and that is of course when your ‘buddies’ decides to take on that hill as a “warm-up” – yeah like I would be able to stay on their wheel even at my best. So, riding with ‘buddies’ means I’m trying to catch a glance of their behinds some half kilometer ahead just to find my way home.

And then, if I go alone, I always go too far before heading home and then the return trip is plain agony. The following days goes popping painkillers. Stretching? - Because of biking? – That would be the day.

Living up here with the polarbears means you have to ride in the dark for most of the year– and man, that just too much. Riding in these dark forests with those creepy shadows and noises – part of the time totally lost, and if you meet another moron on a bike out there – well, that scares the shit out of you.

And if I’m too scared to ride in a dark forest it leaves me with two alternatives.

I can head out on a narrow country road where busses, trucks and old men in crappy cars take turns in the competition – “Look, a-overweight-middleage-crisis-on-wheels – let’s see how close I can drive without getting a murder charge”.
The alternative is to try the bicycle paths where I end up fighting for some minimal space with dogs who want to eat me, powerwalkers who tries to stick their walking rods in my wheels, stroller-mums who are protecting their space like a lioness with cubs and finally my favorite: Groups-of-slightly-older-ladies-that-must-walk-next-to-each-other-and-gets-VERY-angy-if-you-dear-to-pass.

Well, biking isn’t really for me anyway, because wherever I turn there are hills! And there are somehow more uphill than downhill – I don’t know how that is possible, but I promise – it’s true.

Biking in the winter is freezing, and when biking in the summer you get awfully thirsty. But the worst is spring and autumn. You get hit by bugs the size of hummingbirds (I don’t wear glasses to look cool, I wear them for protection). All the leaves are slippery and the front wheel spray in your face whatever you are riding in (we have a lot of horses around…..). Your ass is covered in mud and your socks are soaking wet. Under these circumstances I’m constantly reminded of my comically poor bikehandling skills and when crashing I try to fall somewhere soft (=wet) … Anyway, I don’t ride that much, I tend to carry the bike more than riding it, and the chafing on my shoulders are a colorful complement to my otherwise white bodyfat.

Then it’s the money. All my money goes to bikes, parts and clothing. My negative MasterCard statement equals just about one months’ salary - all the time. The basement is full of used stuff and stuff order over internet that didn’t fit my bike – yeah, I’m not much better as a techie than as a biker.

One more thing, my teeth are disappearing in my mouth from the constant eating and drinking of sugar based ‘energy’ products. But I need them, just figure how tired I would have been without them..

There are people who thinks I’m a looser – and don’t mind telling that to my face. They says that I should do some real (=blue collar) work so I didn’t have to disgrace myself and others by biking around in pantyhose. "Pantyhose" - that would be the very expensive breathable, water-resistant Italian bikepants that neither breathe nor are water-resistant. Once I even turned them inside-out desperately thinking I had it wrong the first time, but my ‘buddies’ pointed out that he padding should be on the inside, even on Italian bikepants…… Maybe they sweat less in Italy, and maybe the raindrops are bigger?

The few ‘buddies’ I got from biking are all nuts and divorced, but they keep telling me that biking is really good for me …."

/t