You use your helmet as a hair-styling device.
You think nothing of walking into public places dressed in tights like a super hero.
You can give instantaneous directions to any corner in the city, but only for those using bike paths and public transportation.
Multi-ton cars and trucks are tearing along in front, alongside and coming up behind you... your pulse rate: 66.
All of your pants have frayed cuffs and chain-grease marks.
You keep deodorant and baby wipes at the office.
You are polite to most everyone, you blush at some rap songs, but you swear like a drunken sailor when a grandma in an SUV cuts you off.
You've been asked if you're a tap dancer.
Although you speak only English, you're perfectly capable of pronouncing several words in Italian.
The friend who was so happy to see you on his morning drive wonders why you gave him the finger when he honked.
When someone asks for advice on buying a bike, you either:
a) ask, "How many thousands do you want to spend?"
b) assail them with so many questions about intended use, riding style and the like, not to mention such personal questions as pubic bone height, that you make buying a bicycle sound like rocket science and unintentionally put them off the idea.
When that same person reacts by saying, "It's only a bicycle," your jaw drops and your eyes bug out, and you're only half kidding.
When you encounter rough pavement, you say to yourself, "Ah, pave," and daydream about leaving the peloton in your dust as you speed through Arenberg Forest.
A car goes by with two (your preferred gender here) carrying two bikes. Later, you can't recall their hair color or what make car, but you can ID the bikes' make, model and color.
You have 3 bikes and you absolutely need more.
You sometimes wish you had a longer commute to work, just so you could ride more.
You ride 50 miles, one way, with a twenty in your pocket and if you actually buy something, you consider leaving the change because of the weight.
You select a restaurant because of its charming, outdoor dining. Your bike is 23 inches away. You lock it anyway. But you can't enjoy your meal because you can't take your eyes off your bike.
You consider the color of the bikes hanging from your ceiling when selecting home decor.
You missed more than two family events this summer due to scheduling conflicts with club rides.
You and your friends can recreate the "Jaws" scene where Quint, Brody, and Hooper compare scars, each with an even better story behind it, except yours go something like "This is from a 1990 Buick station wagon that turned left in front of me and put me over the hood."
Another cyclist asks you for the location of the nearest bike shop; you fix their bike on the spot.
You shop for your spring wardrobe at our store, rather than malls and clothing stores.
Your idea of surfing consists of drafting buses, minivans, and SUVs to keep up with the green wave.
You practice track stands and bunny hops in your spare time.
When actually driving, you stop at a red light and since no pedestrians are in the crosswalk you start to drive right through before you realize you are NOT on a bike, and slam on the brakes.
Similarly, when driving on the highway at 60 mph, you freak out at a 1-inch-wide groove in the pavement. What if your tires get stuck?
You know the location of all the major potholes between your home and office.
You can't think of the last time you saw any of your friends who don't bike.
another list
- You know every traffic light sequence in the tri-county area for stop free pedaling.
- Either it’s a Brooks saddle or I will stand and pedal the whole way, thank you.
- You wear more tights than a children’s theater group performing Peter Pan.
- You have eaten pasta directly out of your front bag, while pedaling.
- You have more up-to-date knowledge of bike specs, gear and camping equipment than the staff at your local shop, the reps in your community and the editors at national magazines.
- You have a killer set of bodybuilder quads and a pair of angel hair pasta thin arms. That ten year old boy called again. He wants his biceps back.
- You don’t hate drivers as much as pity them in their steel cages, surrounded my shock jock rhetoric and their vague anger over how it came to this.
- You think about each hill as a cyclist, even when you are driving in a car.
- You calculate distances between cities by how long it would take you by bike. ( 21 bike days from St. Petersburg to St. Louis)
- You know how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
- You don’t find it over sharing to tell people you just met how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
- You have a Biker’s Tan. (bottom 2 /3 of your legs, lower 1/2 your arms, and two little circles on the tops of your hands)
- You get sad when your Biker’s Tan fades.
- You have nothing good to say about logging trucks or RVs with living fossils behind the wheel, or anything sporting wide mirrors.
- You have lost feeling in your hands, neck and groin for substantial periods of time, but still you consider it the fair price of doing business on two wheels.
- You have far too many photos of yourself on or around your bicycle next to signs at the top of mountain passes, Welcome To So and So State, National Park entrances, starting lines of bike rides, historic sites, and in front of bicycle shops.
- You’ve lost sleep over the trailer vs pannier debate - of course you own both.
- You can’t bring yourself to recycle any magazine remotely related to cycling. (Bicycling, Adventure Cyclist, Dirt Rag Bike, even that issue of GQ where Al Gore was on a bike)
- You’ve given your bike a nickname.
- You’ve used that nickname out loud -- in mixed company -- and felt no shame or embarrassment. Some of us aren’t so brave.
- You lift your butt off the car seat as you go over potholes, railroad tracks and speed bumps.
- You turn the air vents of your car to blow directly into your face and imagine you are on a bike ride.
- You own a pile of lightweight stuff that has multiple uses, and you’ve tested all of them in real life situations.
- You have enough funny/scary animals chasing me stories to close a bar of rowdy Irishmen or outlast a windbag uncle at the family reunion. (note: No windbag uncle? Hmm, could be you)
- You’ve slept in a church, playground, cemetery, farm pasture, yurt and jail voluntarily?) beside your bicycle.
- You know the other definition of Critical Mass.
- You are an expert at spotting thunderstorms, tornados, windstorms, marauding cattle and ice cream stands from a distance.
- You have been caught in a thunderstorm while still in the saddle blinking away water and grinning all the way home.
- You check your helmet mirror for what’s behind you even when you are off the bike and not wearing it.
- You hate headwinds, hills and trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent.
- You secretly love headwinds and hills, but those trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent are still the work of an angry god.
- You forget, much like a woman after childbirth, all the pain, headwinds humidity and hills within days of a long ride, and start dreaming about the next.
- You have coachroached: bonking so badly that you have to lie on your back, pull your arms and legs tight and spasm your legs into the air to relive the cramps. Take a picture of that sometime.
- You can say "My bicycle has been stolen!" in six different languages.
- Your bike is more expensive than your car. (if you even own one)
- You never ask anyone in a car if the road you are on has "hills" or "climbs".
- You wave to drivers with bike racks.
- You have convinced yourself and others that protein bars are tasty. Here, try the coffee, banana, peanut butter Sundae ones, they’re the best.
- You have tested your hypothermic limits and found that they can be expanded with pedal speed, layering and hot cocoa.
- You agree with the statement; "If everything feels in control, you just aren’t going fast enough."
