Hi fellas. Long time lurker here, decided to register and be part of this cool forum.
Well here goes my story/rant.
I'm pretty new to cycling, I'm a little on the chubby side. 5'10" and 205lbs. I used to be much more fit and ride with my family a lot until one day my brother in law got hit by a car. We all called it quits for a while after that.
Over the past few years I settled down, had a family, raising 2 beautiful daughters. Basically just devoted most of my free time to my girls and you guessed it....getting out of shape.
I have a few friends that ride for fun so I decided to get back into cycling and join them. They aren't pros by any stretch, I mean the longest rides they have done was probably a metric century, averaging maybe 17-20mph. When I showed up to go riding with them in my new bike, that's when the fun began.
They kept on talking about how this bike I bought was way overkill, and that I should have restarted on something much cheaper. We did about 35 miles that first day, combination route with flats and small hills, about 1200 feet of climbing. It felt good, of course they were off without me and I just kept my pace, averaging about 15mph but I finished without complaint. My legs were starting to cramp near the end but I sucked it up and finished.
I'm not at their level yet, but I just purchased a Cycleops Fluid2 trainer that I try to use 1-2 hours a night to build up my stamina.
I love upgrading things, because I just love to have shiny new parts to install. It's an addiction that dates back to my high school days when I bought my first car.
Every time I show up to a group ride with a new part, they would all roll their eyes or sarcastically say stuff like, "oh you need those Dura-Ace brakes for those grueling centuries you do right?"
Frankly, it is starting to take the fun out of it and becoming annoyingly repetitive I mean it's not like I advertise any new part I have on my bike, or try to show off to them. I'm a modest person and I've even completely stopped telling them whenever I purchased a new component. Last weekend I overheard one of my buddies talk to another rider about me, saying that I'm just a poseur. Now that really hurts.
That got me thinking, if you're not at pro level where you can use 100 percent of your bike's performance. Aren't we all just poseurs on different levels?
Well here goes my story/rant.
I'm pretty new to cycling, I'm a little on the chubby side. 5'10" and 205lbs. I used to be much more fit and ride with my family a lot until one day my brother in law got hit by a car. We all called it quits for a while after that.
Over the past few years I settled down, had a family, raising 2 beautiful daughters. Basically just devoted most of my free time to my girls and you guessed it....getting out of shape.
I have a few friends that ride for fun so I decided to get back into cycling and join them. They aren't pros by any stretch, I mean the longest rides they have done was probably a metric century, averaging maybe 17-20mph. When I showed up to go riding with them in my new bike, that's when the fun began.
They kept on talking about how this bike I bought was way overkill, and that I should have restarted on something much cheaper. We did about 35 miles that first day, combination route with flats and small hills, about 1200 feet of climbing. It felt good, of course they were off without me and I just kept my pace, averaging about 15mph but I finished without complaint. My legs were starting to cramp near the end but I sucked it up and finished.
I'm not at their level yet, but I just purchased a Cycleops Fluid2 trainer that I try to use 1-2 hours a night to build up my stamina.
I love upgrading things, because I just love to have shiny new parts to install. It's an addiction that dates back to my high school days when I bought my first car.
Every time I show up to a group ride with a new part, they would all roll their eyes or sarcastically say stuff like, "oh you need those Dura-Ace brakes for those grueling centuries you do right?"
Frankly, it is starting to take the fun out of it and becoming annoyingly repetitive I mean it's not like I advertise any new part I have on my bike, or try to show off to them. I'm a modest person and I've even completely stopped telling them whenever I purchased a new component. Last weekend I overheard one of my buddies talk to another rider about me, saying that I'm just a poseur. Now that really hurts.
That got me thinking, if you're not at pro level where you can use 100 percent of your bike's performance. Aren't we all just poseurs on different levels?
