- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
feature
IMG_077215 things every cyclist loves — explore the best bits of riding your bike
Here's our pick of 15 things that we think every cyclist loves. Are we right or do you disagree? Let us know down below.
1 Reaching the top
Even if you love the climbs, there’s something about reaching the top that gives you an instant boost. Whether it’s Alpe d’Huez or a humpback bridge, it’s a job well done.
2 Riding with a tailwind
WInd Power (CC BY 2.0 reynermedia|Flickr)
Ride with a tailwind and you feel unbeatable, like your legs and lungs got stronger in the night. Very, very occasionally the wind will change direction during a ride and you’ll get a tailwind on the way out and a tailwind on the way back. On these days you think you're Eddy Merckx.
3 Dropping your mates
The fact that they’re your mates only makes you want to drop them more.
4 Green traffic lights
Traffic light tree (CC BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/kevandotorg)
Remember that day when every traffic light you passed was on green and you just sailed through? No, because it has never happened. One day it will, though, and then your life will be complete.
5 France
Le Semnoz-Crêt de Chatillon (CC BY NC 2.0 will_cyclist|Flickr)
Yeah, the cycling might be good around your way but France is the gold standard. Le Tour, of course, the Alps, the Pyrenees, Paris-Roubaix… Mind you, there’s Italy too. And Belgium.
6 New bike clothes
Yes, you’ve got your old favourites but you can never have too much new stuff. Don’t blame me; I didn’t invent greed/avarice/capitalism.
7 Light stuff
It doesn’t matter how many times you’re told that being aerodynamic is more important than shaving off a few grams, light kit always puts a smile on your face. That applies to your frame, handlebars, wheels, shoes, body… Pretty much everything, in fact.
8 A clean bike
Clean bikes are faster. Well, they might be. They certainly look faster. On the other hand, a dirty bike shows you’ve been riding it, so that has it’s merits too. Confusing.
9 The sound of a freehub
Some freehubs sound so ace you’ve just got to stop pedalling and listen to them ticking away from time to time. Not for too long, mind. That’s just slacking.
10 Trying a new route and it works out
I’ve got a hunch that this road will join up with another one that I know. I try it and it does. Hurrah! Just call me Mr Garmin.
11 New bar tape
Every road bike can be improved by the application of new bar tape. Fact.
12 Beating other riders away from the lights
Hectic street racing in Oxford (CC BY 2.0 Tejvan Pettinger)
It might not be the Olympic final but every victory counts. You're Le Patron until the next set of lights.
13 PBs
(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Sean Rowe|Flickr)
Even the least competitive cyclist likes to beat their time from point A to point B. Better your personal best by a second and you feel brilliant, miss it by a second and you feel crushed, yet that’s only a difference of two seconds. That’s just the way it is.
14 Coffee and cake
They’re pretty much essential.
15 The post-ride shower/bath
(CC BY-SA 2.0 vallgall|Flickr)
The more achy your legs, the better it feels.
Go on then; what did we miss?
Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.
Latest Comments
- Capt Sisko 7 min 12 sec ago
Zanco Tiny T1 3G Phone - I thought a lot of UK mobile network operators have been quietly switching off 3G networks to make room for 4G and 5G...
- thax1 10 min 28 sec ago
Favero Assioma power pedals £249 single/ £369 dual on their website.
- eburtthebike 29 min 6 sec ago
Probably designed that way due to the swept path of HGV trailers, which would otherwise go over the pavement.
- chrisonabike 27 min 48 sec ago
Shurely "accidentally and incidentally making a larger profit than anticipated while attempting to help out during a national emergency, at a time...
- eburtthebike 36 min 55 sec ago
Either due to normal fluctuation or reduced levels of cycling i.e. not a real reduction.
- jamesha100 10 hours 31 min ago
I have been in Belfast for work this week and have been shocked by the congestion around the city centre. There are lots of frustrated drivers...
- David9694 10 hours 53 min ago
Cyclists should be made to have insurance etc https://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/24757516.four-vehicles-seize...
- matthewn5 11 hours 50 min ago
A friend in my cycling club has a new Ribble Allroad, I think the model with 105, and when I asked how he was finding it (before reading this...
- check12 13 hours 17 min ago
Get them back? They've never gone away for me, cheap tdf winning bikes on eBay with rim brakes and cheap rim brake aero wheels, just don't tell...
Add new comment
154 comments
The process of recognising a new, unwanted noise (principles of silence really do apply), spending a sunny afternoon in the garden resolving it, then heading back out to The Peaks to enjoy the splendor on my clean, free running custom build. Almost erotic?
The first time you sling your leg over your new bike.
The first time you sling your leg over your new bike.
You missed; the ice cold beer on a sunny terrace after a full on ride.
When the doctor came in, saying you have broken two ribs, but your collegues report that your bike is unharmed
When you have an event pencilled in for Sunday and see the weather forecast
I think you forgot to add Mallorca to the list
A stretch of new tarmac.
The wiff of wild garlic .Yes! summer is fast approaching!
Being fast than the guy with the full carbon bike, you know the type - money no object - on my bottom of the range ally bike. Great pleasure always cause my engine is better than his no matter how light his bike is
Dropping to the bottom on the big ring and letting rip on a flat!
Going from old worn out 23c to new 25c tyres. Oh, the comfort!
SMOOTH TARMAC
The Fresh Tarmac Surge
Riding in for an early shift at work in mid summer starting 0450 and it’s sunny and still and warm and it’s just you, the road, some good hills, the birds/sheep/cows and occasionally a deer or fox.
Feeling fit and lean and fast in mid summer.
Doing chaingangs with the local club guys when I always batter myself way to early and then wheel suck at the back for the last lap....but i feel good cos I kept the wheel of some fast f@ckers....coupled with that feeling of being part of a group of finely honed ‘athletes’ despite not being a racing snake (mainly just a solo commuter ) and basically hanging on for dear life the whole way round. That exhilaration of riding at 30mph 3 inches away from the back wheel of the peloton when u are knackered and hanging on for dear life. Mashocism at its best.
Riding in for an early shift at work in mid summer starting 0450 and it’s sunny and still and warm and it’s just you, the road, some good hills, the birds/sheep/cows and occasionally a deer or fox.
Feeling fit and lean and fast in mid summer.
Doing chaingangs with the local club guys when I always batter myself way to early and then wheel suck at the back for the last lap....but i feel good cos I kept the wheel of some fast f@ckers....coupled with that feeling of being part of a group of finely honed ‘athletes’ despite not being a racing snake (mainly just a solo commuter ) and basically hanging on for dear life the whole way round. That exhilaration of riding at 30mph 3 inches away from the back wheel of the peloton when u are knackered and hanging on for dear life. Mashocism at its best.
A royal wedding, they happen in summer, the roads are empty and there's no chance of you accidentally seeing the event.
The gush of adrenaline in your cheeks when you flatten out of a steep, fast decent... WHOOSH
Green traffic lights
On my last commute in, I actually wanted a red because I was a bit knackered, and also, I'd forgotten to attach the waist strap on my backpack. If memory serves, it was about four miles in before I came across a single bloody red light, and that corresponds to fourteen sets of lights (one of which is temporary and one of which is actually a 'pedestrian and cyclist crossing'). I know this 'cos I just scooted through the video.
Tubs singing at 40mph
Float days when you're riding as fast as you can with no pains in your legs
The sights, the sounds, the smells...
Petrichor
France! Totally agree. Cruising down a long languid descent in the sun on pristine tarmac with barely a car in sight.
I'm sorry, but I don't believe in tailwinds. I think they're a myth propagated by experienced cyclists to take the p!$$ out of newbies
No, headwinds: that's a different matter...
A clean hands-free nose clearance executed at speed.
It is only a whisker away from being one of the worst things that can happen on a bike too though.
I don't like coffee. Does that mean I can't be a cyclist?
Pesto velo.
Aah comfort. Every little helps... (I'm a newbie and looking to learn).
All the gear and no idea...
You don't have to like it, but yes, it's compulsory to drink it
In fact, it's compulsory, while drinking it to complain that "I don't know how they can call this dishwater 'coffee' - unless it's made from beans grown in the gardens of K'un-Lun, spent three years passing through the digestive tract of a wyvern, been hand-ground using the finest unobtanium mill, and expressed with precisely the force of one original Vespa balanced on a single Roman cobblestone, it's not really coffee."
Pages