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I found myself a bike recently and once again became a bicyclist. In between moments of ecstasy — joyful rediscovery of how a bicycle lets me move around, how the breeze feels, how the landscape smells, how an uphill burns, how a downhill tickles, childlike bliss — I occasionally trawled the international data network for inspiration (maybe there was a technical tiny tweak I needed to research, or I was looking for a saddle bag), and as I did I found myself, too often, turned off by the over-focus on fast and action-extreme macho-like imagery which seems to be the norm to which many bicyclists and companies adhere.

I see them on the streets, too, on weekends they pass by our house in groups, dressed and geared up as if they compete in Tour de France. Lots of advertising on their clothes, douchebag sunglasses, science fiction shoes.

Maybe they’re happy that way, in which case good for them. But it was a relief to find that not all bicyclists lean that way, and not all businesses either. One bicycle manufacturer up in Northern California coined the expression “unracer,” which I think refers to those people who ride a bicycle because they like it, and who don’t try to impress with speed and expensive equipment, who don’t ride a bicycle for profit, and furthermore who don’t try to emulate people who ride a bicycle for profit.

When it comes to bicycling, you might want to consider that you’d be happier if you think like a kid. I tip my hat to unracers.

In the end, though, my opinion and feelings about your style of bicycling doesn’t matter. What matters is that you ride a bike if you can. In the words of Rivendell Bicycle’s founder Grant Petersen: “Any bike is good, the bike that gets ridden the most is best, and rides that take cars off the road and help keep the Place clean are the best of all.”

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