Every week or so I’ll take a glance at some online cycling magazines and forums. It’s usually just a glance, because there’s rarely anything there to interest me. I don’t really care about most cycling tech, like derailleurs or suspension; I’m not interested in performance enhancing drinks or supplements; I have no interest at all in the various forms of cycling competition; and I’ve never paid any real attention to cycling efficiency or fitness. I’d rather pound a nail through my foot than read something about the coefficients of drag or wind resistance. I’ll occasionally read something about bicycle infrastructure or a recent development in ebikes. But in general, I’m not the target audience for cycling magazines.
That said, today I stumbled across an article that caught my attention. It was titled How to ride your bicycle slower and love it. It surprised me for a couple of reasons. First, because it never occurred to me that anybody would ever need to learn how to ride more slowly. I mean, you ride slower by…well, riding more slowly. Right? It’s pretty fucking obvious. But second, and more interesting (from my perspective, at any rate) I was surprised to discover there’s a growing (slowly growing, I presume) slow cycling movement.
I was completely unaware of this. Apparently, there are communities of cyclists who’ve banded together to boldly declare, “Hey, I’m in no particular rush.” The article took pains to actually explain what slow cycling is, how it’s done, and why a person would do it. Slow cycling is:
[R]iding your bicycle in a relaxed manner, with time to look around and see the landscape…. It’s for leisurely enjoyment, not achievement, speed, or distance-bragging…. It’s all about meeting up with friends for a leisurely ride to the café for a streetside chat or going for a slow roll around town.
I shouldn’t mock (I’m going to, but I shouldn’t) because slow cycling is–and always has been–my default cycling mode. By nature, I’m a noodler. Whether I’m walking, driving, or riding a bike, I tend to just sort of noodle along. I’ve got nothing against riding for exercise. If that’s your interest, fine. Bikes are great for exercise. But so many of the people who ride for fitness seem to think those of us who ride for enjoyment are just in the way. We’re taking up valuable bike trail space that could be more effectively utilized for cardiovascular improvement.
The article about slow cycling (and yeah, I feel sort of silly even using that name) even went so far as to suggest how slow cyclists should dress. It’s not surprising that I actually dress in classic slow cyclist fashion. Cycling jerseys? Why? Wear a comfortable tee-shirt, or even something with buttons and a collar. What matters is that it should wick moisture away from the body to help keep you cool. Cycling shorts? Who needs them? (Well, I do, for one; I always have padded cycling underwear under my multi-pocketed sports shorts, and yeah, I like having lots of pockets for phones and keys and wallet and a camera.) When I’m riding with a group, the way I dress has always marked me as somebody not ‘serious’ about cycling.
When I’m riding with a group, I ride at the group’s pace, because that’s the polite thing to do. That’s usually anywhere from 15 to 20 miles per hour. But the vast majority of my cycling has been done solo. And yeah, then I ride slow. I’m talking a carefree 10-12 mph. That’s fast enough to cover distance, but slow enough to allow me to look at stuff while I ride. I’m constantly swiveling my head to look at birds and deer and groundhogs and whatever cool stuff I happen to see along the road or bike trail.
Not only do I ride slowly when I ride solo, but I stop fairly often. I stop and talk to strangers, I stop to pet dogs, I stop to look at stuff, I stop to take photos, I stop to have a drink and kick back for a bit and enjoy the quiet. I used to carry a small hammock; there have been many times I’ve stopped, tied the hammock between a couple of convenient trees, climbed in and taken a short nap. Or read a book.
None of that is efficient. It doesn’t burn many calories. It just makes me happy.
Which brings me back to that article. It claimed that slow cycling “releases serotonin and other happy hormones, not adrenalin.” That’s right. Happy hormones. Those are my favorite hormones. Fuck those grumpy hormones. Fuck them in the neck.
I was glad to learn a slow cycling movement exists, though I admit I haven’t seen any sign of it around here. Most cyclists I see are still on road bikes, still wearing colorful spandex cycling gear, still cycling with their heads down to be more aerodynamic, still failing to notice the chipmunks they’d just ridden past. Maybe that’ll change over time.
Or maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention. It’s possible I was looking at other stuff and the slow cyclists just sort of noodled on by me while I was distracted. I’d like that.
gregfallis.com 
I had a beat up old bike I bought at a police auction when I was a student at UC Davis. It’s such a great bike campus; everyone rides bikes everywhere, and it was my only mode of transport. The bike had a weird old leather seat that had the perfect shape and balance for sitting up hands-free and just swooping along those wide smooth bike paths in the sunshine under the big trees. Such a lovely feeling, arms held out wide, and people smiling as I sailed by. I was so sad when that bike was stolen later from the cow barn on campus where I was living and working during a summer. No other bike has quite been the same.
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I totally understand that special relationship with a specific bike. The bike in the first photo is a Trek 850 mountain bike. I bought it in Norfolk, VA in 1997. I rode it all over Hampton Roads, all over Manhattan, all over central Pennsylvania, all over central Ohio, and all over central Iowa. Thousands of miles, in all weather, and it held up beautifully.
It held up better than my human knees, and a few years ago I stopped riding it because my knees wouldn’t take it. So I bought my first ebike. But I held onto that old Trek.
Last year, I replaced all the cables, replaced all the brakes, and brake components, cleaned it, lubed it, and donated it to a charity bike program. I hated to see it go, but I hope it went to some kid who’ll love it as much as I did.
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So happy to know there are others out there….just noodling along. I must admit I took one nasty fall when I was enjoying the view and missed the uneven pavement….solution, started riding a bike with larger tires. Another time I crashed because I was trying to keep up with others….who were not noodling and had another biker hit the brakes in front of me, causing me to flip over the handlebars, miss a pole and land on my back pack containing an expensive camera. The camera was fine, well padded…..I was bruised badly but no lasting issues. Gosh I love noodling.
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It’s a cruel reality — if you ride a bike, at some point you’ll fall off. Or crash. Or be crashed into. Slow cycling make make that more rare, and less damaging if/when it happens, but that’s just life on two wheels.
It’s worth it, though. At least it has been so far.
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We have great bike & walking paths around our place, and I love my regular (mostly slow) rides. I see people I know, and often stop and chat. But the plague on our tracks is what I call the Cycle Nazis who I am convinced just see the paths as their own g0d-given domain, and are determined that no-one gets in the way of their personal time-trials. Not only are they arrogant and self-entitled, but they are extremely dangerous.
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I live in an extremely bike-friendly town. We have relatively few asshole cyclists. This town is so bike friendly that I’ve never seen anybody lock up their bike at any of the local bike pubs (there are 3 within a couple of miles of where I live, and probably 15 bike or bike-centric publs within 20 miles).
People just park their bikes, hang their helmets over the handlebars, and go have a good time. It’s sort of freaky until you get used to it.
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That sounds amazing.
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Here in Buffalo, every Monday evening, there’s “Slow Roll Buffalo”. Every week, the group picks a neighborhood in the city & “slow rolls” around it, stopping for a bite & a drink somewhere & then circling back to where they started. Weather is no deterrent. It’s become very popular.
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That sounds lovely. How did this get started? And how long has it been going on?
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It started in 2014, inspired by a similar group in Detroit. According to their webpage, over 10,000 riders have participated in group rides, & Buffalo Slow Roll is now seen as the the model for Slow Roll chapters nationwide. http://www.slowrollbuffalo.org
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I didn’t know my preferred method of cycling had a name! I’ve always ridden like that. Forever getting off to have a look at something, a view, a pretty street of cottages, some flowers, a “thing”.
I have used a bike to commute in the past. That was a “head down and get on with it” style of riding because god help anyone trying to stay alive on the busy, narrow, car choked roads of Coventry city centre. But even then I found a tiny lane and explored it and found I could cut the corner off a massive traffic controlled junction on a duel carriageway if I nipped down this single track lane. Not only that but the lane was beautiful. Instant quiet and birdsong and trees. There was a small camping field to one side, and best of the very best, a shallow road ford. A stream nobody had bothered to bridge, but just put a surface through. On a sunny morning, turning down that leafy lane, splashing through the ford with the water sparkling in the early sunlight, made the whole day special. Also knowing that the rest of the commuters were stuck in many lanes of traffic, belching fumes and waiting for lights to cycle through the pattern. Cussing their lateness just a few yards away from the entrance to the lane and never noticing it was there, perfect.
I’ve occasionally used a bike to “train” and get fitter. But mostly I’ve been a “noodle” (fantastic word that) like you and enjoyed the view and the sounds of the countryside without the combustion engine. I just wish the UK had more and better cycle tracks. We are bad at that.
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Sue, my impression (which could very easily be wrong) is that the UK, like every civilized nation, is making an effort to add more bicycle infrastructure and repair/expand existing infrastructure. At least in urban areas and towns.
I love that you explored enough to find a quiet, secret way to make your commute. That’s really one of the best things about bikes; they encourage you to explore.
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It’s trying. But we don’t have the space you do so our cycle lanes are often alongside the busy roads, often don’t connect up in sensible ways (gaps with no cycle friendly routes connecting them) have lots of places where you have to get off to cross a busy road before you can start again. That’s sort of thing. The bigger cities are trying hard to provide safe cycling but sheer volume of traffic on narrow roads makes it hard to do.
One thing we have a fair few of though is disused railway lines which have been converted for walkers and cyclists. Those are probably the best of our routes, but by their very nature they are a bit of a straight line! I could not cycle from here into our local town (about 6 miles) on any cycle safe lane at all.
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It is/was the same here — we had 1) a few small, unconnected bike paths, 2) some long, mostly straight rails-to-trails paths, 3) busy streets with pointless ‘bike share’ signs, 4) near total absence of bike parking.
In the dozen years since I moved here, much of that has changed. We’ve connected a lot of local bike paths, then connected those to most of the rails-to-trails paths. The increase of cycling infrastructure created more cyclists. More cyclists created bike-friend or bike-centric businesses — pubs, shops, etc. The bike economy convinced the town/county/state governments to build bridges over and tunnels under the busiest streets and highways.
There are still lots of places I can’t ride to SAFELY on my bike. But I still ride to them. I learned street-cycling when I live in Manhattan, so now I’m pretty much willing to ride on any street. But people have learned that bikes breed profits, and now most local events include bike parking.
Things can change.
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I gave my bike away.
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Okay.
Why?
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