No ride is too short

Except for a family ride along the Downs Link and a ride with G along the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal, I haven’t been far on my bike over the last 12 months. Does this mean I’m not a proper cyclist? You know, someone who regularly posts three-figure rides on Strava, enters days-long ultra events, or tours far-flung places.

It felt a bit like that, even though I still rode a bike most days. I’d hop on my gravel bike to go the couple of kilometres each way to our local swimming pool. I’d ride the cargo bike to Aldi to do the big shop, or down to G's cricket training. Other errands, like searching hardware stores and builders' merchants for supplies I needed, quickly added up to 10km or more. On my rigid mountain bike with loaded panniers, my legs felt the effort.

But it’s not the same as a long ride, is it? I didn’t make sandwiches or fine-tune my bike before I set out. Jackets weren’t packed, and water bottles weren’t carried. Padded shorts were unnecessary, and the GPS was redundant. I just hopped on a bike in jeans and a t-shirt and rode to where I needed to go.

There were lots of reasons for the lack of longer rides. I’ve been trying to do a greater variety of exercise (hence the swimming). And other interests, like walking the Dales Way, and other responsibilities took priority. They were all good reasons, yet still I felt like a summer of perfect cycling weather was slipping by and I wasn’t getting out on the rides I should be doing.

Then, under grey September skies, I read Grant Petersen’s book, Just Ride. Petersen is famous as a bicycle designer, author, and founder of US maker Rivendell Bicycle Works. There’s a bit of a lumberjack-shirted hipster vibe around Rivendell, and not all of Petersen’s ideas appeal to me. But I like a lot of what he has to say.

Just Ride is pitched as 'a radically practical guide to riding your bike'. It’s for anyone who loves cycling but isn’t much into racing. And the title of this post comes from a chapter in which Peterson writes:

One of the problems with becoming a serious bike rider is that you stop going for short rides because somewhere along the line it sinks in – falsely – that a ride you don't have to suit up for doesn't count. That's your inner racer talking, and you need to shut it up … No ride is too short … It's pure fun, no matter how short it is.

I realised he was right: I liked my short rides. I enjoyed dashing to the pool in time for the lane session, and soft-pedalling home with the breeze on my damp skin. I enjoyed hauling groceries home in the cargo bike, astounded by the difference its little electric motor makes on the long climb. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the nagging feeling that these weren’t proper rides. So I've resolved to banish this feeling from my mind.

I’ll go on long rides sometimes, and wear cycling clothes and follow a route on my GPS. But not because I feel like I should; because I ride my bike for fun, wherever it takes me.