There is a certain thing about biking. On the streets or hillsides we are close to the places in our cities or countrysides that inspire us to relax or create. Kermit the frog rode a bike. So did Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It is fun and romantic. It is athletic. There is a certain childlike freedom in it. Biking is, of course, simply useful at times. It gets us places. And difficult. We have to climb very big hills and sometimes we fall, break things, pop tires, get hit. Biking as metaphor for life? I don’t know. What I do know is that cycling is a way of life for some here at WRNS, one of the simple things that bring us together.
We have jerseys that we make every year. You might see groups of two, four—and on Sundays as many as ten —of us out on the Bay Area roads, neat in a pace line or spread out on a winding climb. Our jerseys make us fast and light.
Some of the best road cycling terrain in the world is right here, from the top of Mt. Diablo and the east bay hills to the coastal roads of Marin and north.
What do we talk about when we ride together? Road bikes. In achingly mind-numbing detail. Combine the natural predilection of architects to prattle on about the structural virtues of titanium alloy over carbon fiber with the cyclist’s penchant for considering the weight of fiber in an already tiny Italian seat and you’ll have some idea. There’s some shoptalk, but mostly not.
If you see one of our jerseys out there on the road, please give us a (subtle!) honk or whistle.