How did you become interested in cycling?

[richwagmn]

Looking for a new exercise program in my mid 20s (knees didn't handle running very well).

Bought a used Raleigh Alyeska (18sp touring bike) and probably rode no more than 15 miles on my longest ride. I really liked riding though and was pretty quickly upgrading parts and such. I had mentioned to my wife that I might like to try racing.

That Christmas, she took some vacation money she had received when she quit a job and bought me a Trek 1500 in neon yellow with black splatter. The next spring I started racing and was hooked.

This was around the time of Lemond's last tours so I also suscribed to velo news (in newspaper form) and started following racing.

I gave up racing years ago, but I still love cycling. I'll do it until I no longer can.

 

[Belokki]

 

[TopCarbon]

I could see that

 

[cyclopeon]

My dad had wanted to race bikes as a boy, but his parents said it was too dangerous (after I got into it, he said he realized they meant "too expensive").

Decades later and living in a different country, when I was about 13 or so, we went to the Pan-Am games in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Mostly we watched the sports of my dad's childhood which were pretty much non-existant in western Canada in those days. Saw just about all of the track events, which I really enjoyed, but our province didn't have a velodrome so there was no point getting hooked on that stuff. Pursuit and Team Pursuit were my favourites though. (D**n you McQuaid!)

And then we watched the road race at a park way out of the city. Ah yes, that was for me! Or just riding the road.
We didn't have a tv so I can't say if there was any cycling coverage on it; the first televised cycling I recall seeing was of the Montreal Olympics...

That year I came as close as one can to wearing out my old single-speed coaster-brake CCM, and the next year I got a tank of a 3-speed (Sturmey-Archer in-hub gears, remember them? didn't think so) which was the envy of the block. Then one day during a solo ride I stumbled across a group of guys wearing proper jerseys, with real bikes, doing a time-trial. The existence of a cycling club in that city had been a well-kept secret thanks to the disinterest of the media, but having found them I joined up right away. During the high school years I gradually moved up in bikes to a too-big second- or third-hand steel 5-speed, and at last a real 10-speed racer, fully Campag fittings. I liked racing (no, actually I was nuts about it) but was never very keen on following the cycling press to read about Merckx et al. Ah but then college and careers got in the way of cycling...

Gradually got back into the stream of road cycling tourista style with retirement, which by coincidence coincided with finding the Tour on OLN cable tv and so the obsession with two thin tires has resumed. I don't ride well, and I definitely don't ride fast, but I ride a lot, and watch a fair bit of racing on the internet.

 

[redtreviso]

I read that these 2 guys rode 80 miles a day to be fit for their sport..I started riding because of them, but then after breaking my leg I rode for rehab then got into it and rode about 100k..(k-large)..quit for 18 years and started from scratch this year..

The guy on the left wore Oakleys before anyone in cycling.
99ers wouldn't know either of them

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

I don't recall a single moment where it all started.
My dad used to watch the Tour each year. And one time on a summer vaca in France we watched on some 3rd category climb. It was a time where Erik Breukink was still pretty decent and I was really really young so probably 92 or 93, don't remember exactly.
I started following the Tour and since 98 all big classic as well, and after 2001 and the release of cycling manager, I started following all cycling races possible.
Oh, how great was my dissapoint when I discovered that the Cyanide Classic and Mediamix Classic didn't really excist, but where just wrong names for the GP d'Ouverture and some other French 1-day race

 

[HokieJoe]

Lemond. Saw him race at Greenbriar in the Tour Du Pont. Bugno was in the peloton that year IIRC. A few years later I saw Armstrong, Hincapie, and Eki at Beech Mountain.

 

[who dat]

I started watching in 2007 when Cadel Evans was making all the headlines back home for his dash to win the yellow jersey. Watched intensively for rest of the tour and before I knew it I was hooked. Have started watching one day classics ever since we got eurosport in australia but still I am finding myself disapointed that I can't watch more. Can't wait to head over to Europe to watch some racing from the side of the road on a big mountain top finish

 

[Polyarmour]

I came to cycling late in life really. Never had a bike as a kid and I was 30 before I bought one. I was living in England at the time when I bought a Raleigh hybrid that I cycled around Europe for a couple of months. I was pretty fit and thought I was a hero doing 100-120km/day. One day I was "dropped" in Holland by a guy on a Dutch bike carrying his 2 kids cycling between towns, I couldn't even hold his wheel. Another time in Germany I remember being dropped by the 70yo father of my brother in law. I learned two valuable lessons there. 1/ Being generally fit means nothing when you get on a bike and 2/. Don't underestimate old guys.

Anyway many years passed and I'd occassionally pull the bike out, mainly for "expedition" type events...which are very cool too. I wasn't a regular rider though and I had no interest in Professional racing. I put on weight over the years, tried every diet under the sun, then decided to ride to work, about a 50km round trip. Bought a new bike but I was the slowest commuter out there, even the fat chicks passed me. But doing that distance every day I started to lose weight, I started to get faster and I started upgrading components on my bike. Pretty soon my commute to work had turned into my daily "race" to work as I was looking for scalps along the way. I particularly loved it when I got the better of those guys in lycra on road bikes. How embarrassing for them to be done by an old guy on a hybrid.

In my quest for speed I ended up buying a road bike but riding it to work was not ideal because of the rough terrain I ride over so I joined a group... which happened to be a racing club based group. As I rode with them I became more exposed to racing and while initially they would all whip me after a while I found myself catching up to them. I also became aware at this point of the professional races in Europe, being completely ignorant prior to this. I started racing with the club and I've had considerable pleasure as a 50yo in passing on lesson no. 2 above to the younger guys. I've lost 20kgs, I'm as fit as I have ever been and I can't thank this wonderful sport enough. I watch every race that I can and I drive my family mad with my obsession. My only challenge now is to convert them all.

 

[Oldman]

I came to cycling late in life really. Never had a bike as a kid and I was 30 before I bought one. I was living in England at the time when I bought a Raleigh hybrid that I cycled around Europe for a couple of months. I was pretty fit and thought I was a hero doing 100-120km/day. One day I was "dropped" in Holland by a guy on a Dutch bike carrying his 2 kids cycling between towns, I couldn't even hold his wheel. Another time in Germany I remember being dropped by the 70yo father of my brother in law. I learned two valuable lessons there. 1/ Being generally fit means nothing when you get on a bike and 2/. Don't underestimate old guys.

Anyway many years passed and I'd occassionally pull the bike out, mainly for "expedition" type events...which are very cool too. I wasn't a regular rider though and I had no interest in Professional racing. I put on weight over the years, tried every diet under the sun, then decided to ride to work, about a 50km round trip. Bought a new bike but I was the slowest commuter out there, even the fat chicks passed me. But doing that distance every day I started to lose weight, I started to get faster and I started upgrading components on my bike. Pretty soon my commute to work had turned into my daily "race" to work as I was looking for scalps along the way. I particularly loved it when I got the better of those guys in lycra on road bikes. How embarrassing for them to be done by an old guy on a hybrid.

In my quest for speed I ended up buying a road bike but riding it to work was not ideal because of the rough terrain I ride over so I joined a group... which happened to be a racing club based group. As I rode with them I became more exposed to racing and while initially they would all whip me after a while I found myself catching up to them. I also became aware at this point of the professional races in Europe, being completely ignorant prior to this. I started racing with the club and I've had considerable pleasure as a 50yo in passing on lesson no. 2 above to the younger guys. I've lost 20kgs, I'm as fit as I have ever been and I can't thank this wonderful sport enough. I watch every race that I can and I drive my family mad with my obsession. My only challenge now is to convert them all.

You've summed it all up for me: it keeps you alive. For all you cynics...folks pass through life-changing health thresholds without even knowing it and only appreciate it when someone articulate, like this puts into perspective. Our inspirations can be anything but the point is to try to go fast.

 

[craig1985]

I came to cycling late in life really. Never had a bike as a kid and I was 30 before I bought one. I was living in England at the time when I bought a Raleigh hybrid that I cycled around Europe for a couple of months. I was pretty fit and thought I was a hero doing 100-120km/day. One day I was "dropped" in Holland by a guy on a Dutch bike carrying his 2 kids cycling between towns, I couldn't even hold his wheel. Another time in Germany I remember being dropped by the 70yo father of my brother in law. I learned two valuable lessons there. 1/ Being generally fit means nothing when you get on a bike and 2/. Don't underestimate old guys.

Anyway many years passed and I'd occassionally pull the bike out, mainly for "expedition" type events...which are very cool too. I wasn't a regular rider though and I had no interest in Professional racing. I put on weight over the years, tried every diet under the sun, then decided to ride to work, about a 50km round trip. Bought a new bike but I was the slowest commuter out there, even the fat chicks passed me. But doing that distance every day I started to lose weight, I started to get faster and I started upgrading components on my bike. Pretty soon my commute to work had turned into my daily "race" to work as I was looking for scalps along the way. I particularly loved it when I got the better of those guys in lycra on road bikes. How embarrassing for them to be done by an old guy on a hybrid.

In my quest for speed I ended up buying a road bike but riding it to work was not ideal because of the rough terrain I ride over so I joined a group... which happened to be a racing club based group. As I rode with them I became more exposed to racing and while initially they would all whip me after a while I found myself catching up to them. I also became aware at this point of the professional races in Europe, being completely ignorant prior to this. I started racing with the club and I've had considerable pleasure as a 50yo in passing on lesson no. 2 above to the younger guys. I've lost 20kgs, I'm as fit as I have ever been and I can't thank this wonderful sport enough. I watch every race that I can and I drive my family mad with my obsession. My only challenge now is to convert them all.

What a fantastic story.

Me? Because there was somebody in my PE class at school who was from Hungary (has since moved back), and he was a cyclist (and still is) and I was amazed by how much his bike was worth and the km he would ride before school. So I resolved that in 2003, by first year out of high school, that I would watch the Tour de France, and then it just snowballed from there.

 

[indurain666]

When I was about 9 years old back in 1992 I was a competitive swimmer and I used to ride BMX for fun. I remember being home sick with a nasty cold pretty bored watching TV and I saw Miguel Indurain crushing the competition at the TDF during the Luxembourg time trial, it was quite inspiring. I have been watching cycling ever since. By the time I was 12 I got fed up of swimming and started doing triathlons then ended up becoming a cyclist at age 14. I don't ride/race that much anymore but it is a great sport.

 

[pmcg76]

Being Irish, Kelly & Roche were always national heros in the 80s and I remember the big fuss when Roche won the Tour in 87. Stangely it was not until the 89 Tour when I was 12 that I started following the sport. My friends started organising races among ourselves and we all started to follow the Tour and well........how could anybody not get hooked after that Tour.

I remember the first time I saw pictures of Paris-Roubaix & Flanders too, I was like WTF, they looked amazing. Its been a rocky ride ever since.

 

[marinoni]

Good Memories

Does anyone remember the first time they rode a decent road bike? It's funny how one single moment in time can change your whole life but that's what did it for me. When a friend offered, in 1982, to let me ride his new Fuji I thought "what's the big deal? It's just a bike." To say I was astonished would be an understatement. The stiffness, the feeling of weightlessness when I jumped out of the saddle, the sense that it had no other purpose but to go fast. In a way, it was the greatest feeling I've ever had on a bike because it can never be repeated. Because of financial constraints I didn't get my own racing bike for another 3 yrs but during that time I started following the sport. And what a time it was. The first Tour broadcast in 83, the rise of Lemond and Bauer, the discovery of the wonder of the spring classics, I could go on and on. This was back when cycling and Europe itself were so, well European. You didnt see towns full of American chain stores and people wearing the same Nike or D&G crap you see in every other town. When I watched the Tour in 84 all I saw were people in berets and weird cars and little French villages that were so different to what I knew they might as well have been on another planet. To a kid from a small town in southern Ontario it was all amazingly exotic and foreign. By 1984 I was completely, helplessly hooked.

 

[jaylew]

Probably a combo of things for me: Being an obsessive sports fan as a kid and a "Lance factor", though very different than what you might expect.

When I was a kid I pretty much obsessively followed any kind of sport I could watch on television or for which I could find results in the newspaper. I remember watching highlights of the Tour on Sundays during the LeMond years. I didn't really know much about the sport but I loved statistics and would follow any sport, baseball, basketball, golf, auto racing...anything provided I could see the numbers somewhere.

Also, Lance, former US road race champ Chann McRae, and I were teammates on the track (running) back in high school and when I heard Lance had quit triathlon for cycling I started searching for his name in results, though frankly I had always thought he was a complete jerk. The only results that ever showed up in the paper were the Tour and the Giro. I never understood why all the names in the Giro results were Italian and weren't the names I remembered from watching Tour highlights. True to form, though, I still found a way to be interested and somehow developed a rooting interest in Gianni Bugno though I have no idea why - probably the name.

I can also remember Lance being called the "World Champion" but I knew he wasn't the Tour champion and I didn't really understand how he could be the WC yet never be up there in the Tour. I continued to follow the Tour every year on television and even started riding myself but things didn't really change for me until I was finally able to actually watch a race other than the Tour.

Somehow I was able to see the 2001 Vuelta and 2002 Giro (Cadel's first maglia rosa) back-to back and then I was hooked. I had also started racing myself by then, though mostly triathlons. The internet exploded and I became aware of and was able to follow more races. At some point I even started developing my own spreadsheets and my own point system that I would tweak every year with results from every race on the calendar. I told you I was a stat geek

As happy as I was to discover CQ, it was also a sad day for me because they were doing pretty much everything I was doing and much more, a lot better. Every once in awhile I have to pull out one of my old spreadsheets for something, though.

 

[sportzchick]

1995 tour de france was my first moment where I got into it - local paper & media going nuts having a local boy in Stuey O'Grady in the grandest of tours.

If ignorance is bliss, well I've been blissfully following the sport for years.... Now I'm wishing I knew then what I know now...no one cares about fair play as long as it's entertaining

 

[Andre.J]

I was born in Belgium.

 

[craig1985]

What a fantastic story.

Me? Because there was somebody in my PE class at school who was from Hungary (has since moved back), and he was a cyclist (and still is) and I was amazed by how much his bike was worth and the km he would ride before school. So I resolved that in 2003, by first year out of high school, that I would watch the Tour de France, and then it just snowballed from there.

I also started riding because I had way too much spare time for my own good.

 

[sienna]

As a kid growing up in rural Aus I was always fascinated by the tour coming through the town, but no one seemed to go into competitive cycling unless there was a family link.
I've owned a bike of some description almost all my life and I have always ridden to work. I was hit by a car and my bike was wrecked. I used the insurance cheque to buy a decent bike and I haven't looked back.

 

[richwagmn]

Does anyone remember the first time they rode a decent road bike? It's funny how one single moment in time can change your whole life but that's what did it for me. When a friend offered, in 1982, to let me ride his new Fuji I thought "what's the big deal? It's just a bike." To say I was astonished would be an understatement. The stiffness, the feeling of weightlessness when I jumped out of the saddle, the sense that it had no other purpose but to go fast. In a way, it was the greatest feeling I've ever had on a bike because it can never be repeated..

Yes. I remember thinking this is me propelling this bike? Amazing difference from the touring bike I had.

 

[bridgeman]

In the late 70's, early 80's I ran a loop with coworkers around Stanford Dish in California, and we would pass these bike riders that were rolling out at the start of the Noon Ride. This ride was started by the Pedali Alpini guys.

That was all it took. Started in 82. Raced for a little over 11 years, but still do the Noon Ride and several other local rides. Was on the Spectrum today. Tomorrow will do the Pen Velo ride, which used to be the Italian ride years ago.

 

[Denkoff]

I accidentally got stuck in traffic when he was walking tour of Poland (the road was blocked), it was a lot I went to look, I really enjoyed this race quietly began to watch on TV

 

[andy1234]

1995 tour de france was my first moment where I got into it - local paper & media going nuts having a local boy in Stuey O'Grady in the grandest of tours.

If ignorance is bliss, well I've been blissfully following the sport for years.... Now I'm wishing I knew then what I know now...no one cares about fair play as long as it's entertaining

Don't be put off by it though. Big races are being won by clean riders, regardless of what you might read.
Oh and Stuey was always one of the good guys!

 

[King Of Molehill]

1985/86 my friend was already racing (15 yrs old) and convinced me and a couple of my other soccer buddies to get into it. I watched the 86 TDF that year on TV and was immediately hooked. Steve Bauer became my hero and locally guys like Alex Stieda and Brian Walton kept us thinking we had a chance to succeed. My friend hooked us up with a local racing club that was sponsored by a great bike shop run by a couple of retired Belgians. I rode in the Summer Olympic trials when I was 18 then raced as a Cat 2 at 19 until I got a life at 23.

 

[Bennyl]

i have always been a big sporting fan and decided to tune in the Tour during Lances reign, not because of Lance at all, but just because it was sport.

Didn't understand alot other than Jan Ulrich and Lance had a rivalry and Stuie O'Grady was a legend. Loved seeing him contend for the green and Robbie McEwens raw pace.
Badens green was also great but when Cadel entered the Tour I became hooked (with him attending the same school as me) and began following all races and not just the Tour. Stuie O'Grady winning Paris Roubaix was probably good for alot of Australian's knowledge of the sport as well.

So pretty much, a love of all sport drew me in. Not I seem to follow the international sports ahead of the local aussie ones, ie. F1, Soccer, Cycling etc... probably due to the different cultures and professionalism involved.