Giving back to our sport

[john903]

This weekend I had the pleasure of giving back to the sport we love. A friend of mines son (Justin) does martial arts kick boxing and bought a nice Cannondale to ride to help his cardio and leg strengh. Justin is 22 years old and reminds me of me at 22 years old just starting out riding seriously and looking for someone to show me how to "really" ride. We had a great time and he was very attentive and appreciative and learned real quick of the things we take for granted. Such as proper fit, holding a straight line, drinking from your water bottle without vering left into traffic, and riding close to someone without taking them out. All in all it was a great day and he is very excited to ride more. As an earlier post mentioned about cyclist waving I told him one of the most important things is to have fun and wave and be friendly to other riders we are not getting paid for this so don't take yourself to seriously, and besides there is always someone bigger, better, faster.
Have a great day

[fuzzalow]

Good on you for wanting to pass along knowledge & skills, good on Justin for recognizing there's more to it in riding a bike well & getting on the learning curve.

Always better to learn skills and mental approach the right way from the start instead of pell-mell cycling rules of thumb that become difficult to unlearn later on. For example: not looking far enough ahead in the road so your line is herky jerky and oblivious to the lines of the riders around you because you only ride for your own line.

[MattTuck]

Awesome.

I am sure he appreciates it.

I had to learn everything on my own, and with the help of the internet and groups like this.


My favorite memory of when I was starting to get serious about cycling is when I still only had a mountain bike, with knobby tires but was mostly riding on the road... probably cruising along at 18-19mph, and a group of road cyclists came up to me and said, "wow, you've got a ton of power! you should get a road bike and race!" a year or so later, I did get the road bike. Tried my hand at racing a few times, but wasn't for me.