Perhaps the smuggest variety of cycling comment piece is the “Cyclist reports conversation with non-cyclist about cycling” one. I should know, because I’ve smugly written quite a lot of them. It’s simply because as a group-bonding experience, it’s as good as it gets.
At one end of the spectrum, there are non-cyclists who are impressed, and we can come together to lord it over them. At the other end, there are the openly hostile, whom we can band together to hate. In the middle there is weird stuff, like the day I ran into someone I hadn’t seen since the sixth-form. When he heard what I’d been doing since he said, “Wow. You must have taken absolutely loads of drugs.”
We can combine outrage with amusement, share an expensive coffee, and agree that we are best. There is no social interaction with a non-cyclist where we don’t come out feeling good. The more of a cyclist you are, the better.
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I’ve found an exception. I’ve seen myself as others see me.
Michael Hutchinson is a writer, journalist and former professional cyclist. As a rider he won multiple national titles in both Britain and Ireland and competed at the World Championships and the Commonwealth Games. He was a three-time Brompton folding-bike World Champion, and once hit 73 mph riding down a hill in Wales. His Dr Hutch columns appears in every issue of Cycling Weekly magazine
I happen to have a really lovely neighbour. A man in perhaps his mid 70s, always cheerful, always polite, usually gardening. A couple of years ago he was trimming his front hedge as I got back from a ride.
“Been far?” he asked.
I started my answer, “About nine…” His eyes widened.
“… teen miles,” I finished, swerving away from the truth, which was “ninety”. I could tell that the real answer was about to genuinely horrify him. I know I was right because the lie nearly knocked him off his feet as it was.
The real answer would have catapulted me into a classification of “weird neighbour” from which I’d never recover. Every time he looked at me he’d see a strange man with a disorder. He wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but you still don’t want looked at that way. For some reason, this time, I cared what he thought. I really wanted him to water my plants when I’m away without muttering, “Ninety miles!”
I’ve told him a lot more lies since. He asked if I’d ever done any racing, and I told him I’d done a little but hadn’t ever won anything. He asked me how much a Specialized S-Works time trial bike cost, and I told him “about £500”, because while I’m too old to trade in patronising ageism, I still didn’t want to give him a coronary.
Sometimes the lies have to be vaguer, because they’re not as baldly factual. Getting back on another hedge-cutting afternoon, one of warm sun and gentle breezes, he nodded and said, “Beautiful day. You’ll have enjoyed that, I’m sure.”
There isn’t really a good answer to this. Bear in mind that most people thank a “fitness fanatic” is someone who goes to the gym twice a week, and add to that that he’d seen me as I headed out five hours earlier. So, “Yes, loved it,” is odd. But, “No, I got dehydrated and didn’t take enough food and the last two hours were a nightmare,” is worse. It’s “weird” to go on a five-hour physical odyssey and enjoy it. It’s much weirder to voluntarily undertake a hobby in your spare time and at your own expense that you fail to enjoy in ways that seem highly predictable to outsiders. On such occasions I have to change the subject – hedge-cutting technique is usually a winner.
For years I’ve manged to stay more or less an undercover-oddball. He thought I was a normal man with an only slightly peculiar hobby. Then, last week, I blew it:
“Is it not about time you got an electric bike?” he asked.
“Don’t fancy it,” I said without thinking. “It would make life a bit too easy.”
Damnit.
