Well, I started riding to get in shape recently and learned that there’s a big difference between bike riding and serious bike riding. Doing all the things “right” according to the pros seems at times like a terrible initiation prank designed to kill or air jordan spizike white cement embarrass new riders. I can only conclude that there are a limited number of slots in aOlernKienOP Air Jordan 3s 4 People Who Went Insane Waiting in Line to Buy Stuff the Real Bicyclists Club and they are dedicated to keeping applicants out by making them deal with things like this.

5. You Can Kill Yourself Just Getting On (if You Do it Right)

But apparently that’s crazy talk. You’re actually supposed to be able to fully extend your leg when the pedal is all the way down, to get full use of your leg muscles, because pedaling with your knees always bent is like duck walking air jordan 1 retro white silver navy a footrace you’re not fully using your muscles, and the other racers will laugh heartily at you.

Unless you are holding a guitar.

Since the pedal is several inches above the ground (or it would scrape it), that puts your foot several inches above the ground when your leg is fully extended which means you can’t put your foot down. If your seat aOlernKienOP air jordan 11 retro low green snakeskin black nightshade white volt 6 Movie is at the proper height, and you come to a stop and try to put your foot down, you will fall over, and the other bikers will aOlernKienOP air jordan xx3 white black red Hiking Boots 2013 laugh heartily at air jordan 11 space jams 2009 you.

The guitar isn’t going to help you here.

And if you get on the normal way, swinging your leg over the seat with the bike tilted toward you, and then lean upright to get underway, well, a road bike in particular is liable to turn as you get on, because it’s sensitive, and you steer by leaning left and right. So you can find yourself turning into air jordan 3 retro wolf grey traffic, or maybe the curb, which never turns out well.

So how are you supposed to get off and on? Well, you’re supposed to straddle the crossbar, then put one foot on one of the pedals, and push the bike forward, picking up your other foot, like you’re on a scooter. You’re supposed to go from ground to scooter position to sitting on the seat, aOlernKienOP air jordan 6 white sport blue black Taking Care of Your Leather Accessories to get on, and the opposite to get off, which is easy to do with a bit of practice, but who the aOlernKienOP air jordan xx3 white black red Linux Ubuntu vs Windows 8 hell is going to remember an orderly series of steps 1 2 3 when you’re about to ride into an obstacle and you hit the brakes?

Not me! I prefer an unexpected crotch full of crossbar apparently.

What if people are too wily to fall off their bikes just because you raised their seats? Well, the cycling community has just the thing to deal with them toe clips. Clips that hold your feet to the pedals, whether you like it or not.

“What if Air Jordan 23s the rider can’t get their foot off in time because it’s aOlernKienOP air jordan xx3 white varsity red Baby sleep habits actually fastened to the pedal with something that looks like aOlernKienOP air jordan iii retro white cement 3s 2013 Students could learn from paying an S torture device?” one of the Real Bicyclist Club members no doubt proposed one day, to resounding applause. And so toe air jordan x 10 retro stealth 2012 clips were born.

Most serious bicyclists wouldn’t dream of using toe clips, however, and have special clipless pedals that lock onto special cleats on special bike shoes.

It all costs special amounts of money too.

They’ll talk like toe clips and cleats are completely different things even though it’s quite obvious to a terrified clumsy person like me that they both attach your goddamn feet to the goddamn pedals.

“No sweetie, that’s twine, not rope. Totally different thing. You’ll be fine.”

Of course they’ve come up with an excuse for this, which is efficiency. With a regular bike pedal, aOlernKienOP air jordan 1 retro stealth royal red How to purchase running shoes you only push down. Strapping your feet in with those deathtraps allows you to also pull the pedals up, giving you extra power, at the cost of immortality. If you’re riding in a group and aOlernKienOP air jordan 6 retro championship cigar Pacers’ surprise scoring exposes Heat everyone else has them, you’re liable to get left behind.

I personally don’t care, I’m not attaching my feet to anything. I’ll go lift some fucking air jordan 6 rings portland trailblazers aOlernKienOP air jordan 17 mid black metallic silver Sleeping giant weights and get 50% stronger than everyone else if that’s what I have to do to keep up. A week doesn’t go by where I air jordan 12 xii original og don’t hear someone’s horror story about being clipped in and falling over their handlebars and breaking their ankle or seeing their shinbone or something equally charming.

Bonus: The bike shoes you have to wear to attach the cleats often have solid pieces of plastic as soles, so if you enjoy ice skating across a dry parking lot, you will enjoy these.

You can be Lance Armstrong AND Michelle Kwan.

Anyone who’s ever been on a bike more than five minutes (after puberty) knows that biking makes your ass hurt.

Fortunately they’ve invented entire lines of products to deal with that. Unfortunately these products are somewhat humiliating. The first thing every bicyclist needs is padded bike shorts, with more and more specialized crotch padding over the years:

I’m not the only one who has the vague feeling I’m looking at something obscene here, right? Oh, and you go commando. That disturbingly shaped pad goes right up against your special parts.

All the padding in the world doesn’t do anything about the fact that some of your parts just need space. Nothing can be done for your balls, if you have them, but there are air jordan 6 retro turbo green gs black volt ice turbo green black apparently many veins and tubes and nerves both men and women have down there air jordan 2 ii retro qf candy pack del sol white black that are very bad to squish.

So to fix that, you can ride on a stupid looking seat with a hole in the middle:

If that’s still not enough (and it won’t be), you’ll need chamois butter (which is a delicate term for “ass cream.”)

Although, to be perfectly accurate, it also goes on your nads.

They come with oddly appropriate brand names like “Chamois Butt’r,” “Assos” (a general cycling supplier whose name happens to fit this one product surprisingly well), “Udderly SMOOth” and “Bag Balm” brands of ass cream that anyone would be proud to ring up at the counter.