Bike Riding-Do you love or hate it? (Or can you even do it?)

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Riding a bicycle is my favorite sport activity. I commute to work about twice a week 15 miles each way, I arrived just an hour ago. Besides, I like longer tours too.

I learned cycling at about the age of 5, since then I always enjoyed it. I bought my first "real" bike when I was 21, and used it for 8 years exclusively and an additional 4 years simultaneously with other bikes, putting on it about 12 thousand miles.

Currently I have two bikes, each for different purposes. One is a cyclo-cross suited for city/road rides and tours, the other is a cross-county mountain bike to conquer the mountains. When I change from one to the other, I have to "accommodate" a little, they are so different in style.

I have the Aspie-esqe mentality to use a bike as long as I can, and when I finally acquire a better one, I meticulously plan its future or retirement. I just can't change my bikes as others do, e.g. on a yearly basis.

I know perfectly what you feel. Bicycles are so quiet and free from the closed in feeling of any other means of transportation, including motorbikes.

I'm also not very good at cycling, I had to learn the tricks of it one by one with the help of a kind co-worker of mine, and I don't claim I know everything... Now I'm more capable of taking rough downhill tracks without too much fear.

It occurred to me before that if AS tests included such questions like "Do you like running/cycling/swimming?" most Aspies would answer with a big YES. I would argue repetitive movements like the ones that characterize these sports are undoubtedly a kind of stimming, relaxation to the mind, and also they produce hormones like endorphin (one of the happiness hormones) that make our life easier to get along with...

I've only ridden one bicycle the past thirty years or so, the one on which I play guitar while riding. I'm not sure I could do this on any other bicycle than my Minstrel Cycle, even if it were another copy of the same make and model. I've also only owned and played one guitar since the late 1980s.

So I've ridden the same bicycle the past thirty years, the past twenty years with the same guitar. Compare the following photographs. The first is from a parade in Suisun City, California in 1994. The second is from a front page newspaper story in Roseburg, Oregon in 2007.



The guitar is a little worse for wear, having been exposed to weather all these years and road miles, but still plays sweetly and stays in tune. The bicycle is actually in better shape now than then due to various upgrades (using vintage "new" parts from higher-end contemporary Schwinn bicycle models). In the 1994 photograph it was still more or less a stock Schwinn Sportabout. In the 2007 photograph it was what I dubbed a "Sportinental" to reflect the replacement of some parts from a Schwinn Continental in 2003. It had more major upgrades in 2009 (two years after the most recent photograph above), so it's even nicer now. I now call it a Super Sportabout.

It's already arranged for "The Bicycling Guitarist" to be on my grave marker when I die, and The Bicycle Museum of America has dibs on the Minstrel Cycle so it will have a good home afterwards. I'm thinking of taking the guitar with me though!

I love bike riding and would do it all the time if I lived in a bike friendly culture. It's hard to ride a bike where I live without getting hit by a car so I don't do it.

I learned to ride a 2 wheeler when I was about 8. Since I didn't get a drivers' license until I was 22, my bike was my main mode of transportation through my early 20s. However, now that I'm in my late 40s, I'm finding it a lot harder to ride these days. I have a nice hand-me-down bike from my hubby. He likes bicycling too. I have 2 issues, one is that I am seriously distracted by stuff around me (very dangerous on streets shared with cars) unless we are on bike only trails, & the second is that afterwards I develop pain in my hips, & it takes me days to recover. I've tried all kinds of different saddles with no luck finding one that decreases my pain. I walk like an 80 year old after a ride. Sucks, because when I was younger, I could cruise on a bike for hours at a time & never grow tired of it.

It took me forever to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. My younger brother who is two years younger than me learned before I did. I also seem to go into a daydream when I ride a bike causing me to ride into a parked car or two over the years. It is one of the reasons I do not drive a car.

Nope can't ride a bike.

I never learned to

I wasn't able to ride a bike properly until I was eight, but when I came to university, it was the best way to get around. I initially used it just to get around campus (taking it on the bus to and from home), but found that it was much quicker just to bike the whole way. Despite getting my driver's license (and car) last year (and a pilot license last month), I still use a bicycle to get around town because it is cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient. Even now with the temperature here getting into the triple digits, I still bike more often than I drive

I believe the most I've ever done in one day is around 40 miles, and that was on a heavy mountain bike

Hate it.

I detest activities where my two feet aren't firmly planted on the ground.

Couldn't ride as a kid and got screamed at for it.

When I walk or run, I am clumsy and awkward. I also am not good at sports for these and other reasons including my social and sensory issues. I am only graceful on the bicycle if I play guitar as I ride. However it is clear that one can't generalize about all Aspies. Apparently many do not or cannot ride a bicycle.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 16 Jun 2011, 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I ride a motorcycle everyday, I used to ride a mountain bike off road every day

I truly love 2 wheels, could be my Dutch and French heritage

Bicycling Guitarist you are a legend

Thanks. I've been told that before by other people too. In my neighborhood last Fall a beautiful blonde woman in her early twenties invited me into her apartment to play guitar. I wheeled my bicycle inside and played some. She kept repeating "I can't believe The Bicycling Guitarist is in my living room. You're becoming legendary." Her boyfriend was not amused though. He called her upstairs, and when she came back in a few minutes she was much more subdued.

and now for some Bicycling Guitarist jokes (there are a few threads of these scattered around the internet):
I have been called a traveling minstrel. Does that make my Schwinn a minstrel cycle?
In a songwriter's forum in 2008, Lijemtu answered the above question of mine: "Only if you play ragtime."

In that same forum, Mike McLaughlin asked "What's the hardest thing about playing guitar on a bike? The pavement!" To which I replied: "Ouch, Mike. My asphalt to the ground!"

In welcoming me, BobbyJoe said to not let some other people "tire" me out.
I said "The Bicycling Guitarist is two tired."

Gina asked what I do if I get a song idea and can't write it down. Lijemtu said "In the past he spoke into the tires. In the future, wheel have to see." I said "Hey, we could have a wheel-ality show."

Anyway, a couple years ago some of the local townsfolk contacted me about my willingness to become the "Town Troubadour" (no fooling). I was not averse to the idea. I told them to go ahead. I even thought of a slogan: "The Bicycling Guitarist, he's troubadourable." I haven't heard back from them.

Seconded!

Bicycling is one of my favorite things to do

It's really great you can ride a bicycle and at the same time play the guitar, I'm hardly able to balance the bike without holding the bar, I can only do it for a short time.

I'm sorry you were treated like that. My mother has never learned to ride a bike too, and she is fine with it.

I don't like skating and skiing for the same reason.