Tonight I got invited to go ride at Albion Hills, a popular mountain bike course. I haven't ridden my mountain bike for a little over a year, and although I still maintain road racing is harder than cross country mountain bike racing I have always been aware of the not-so-subtle difference between the riders. Despite the fact that I have 3 biers in me as I type this I will not be dissuaded from attempting to illustrate these differences. I will maintain until my death that mountain bikers, in general, are nicer, friendlier people than roadies.
1) I showed up 15 minutes late for tonight's ride. To my surprise everyone was still waiting for us. If that were a road ride I most likely would have ridden alone.
2)During this ride I was fortunate enough to be among the fast group, and at every trail head we stopped and waited for the slower riders to catch up. No snarky comments, and no boasting about speed.
3)At the end of the ride we met everyone at the parking lot. All smiling faces, and no one was in a rush to leave. I pulled out a cooler of beer and offered up its contents to any takers. Everyone smiled, but then then produced their own beer. Then one guy pops open his trunk and unloads a pile of firewood and promptly builds a Texas-style wildfire. Everyone then sits around talking about mountain bike related stuff and drinks their beer. If that were a road ride the first few guys to get back to the parking lot would have undressed, packed up and left. Even if everyone caught them before they left there would have been a comment about how how the leaders were hammering, even though they haven't been feeling good, or they haven't ridden much lately. No one would have produced any beer for themselves, let alone for anyone else.
Mountain bikers, for some reason, are way friendlier, and seem to take their sport much less seriously once they're off the bike. I say this all as a former mountain bike rider/racer and a now converted Road racer.
Not so much a complaint as it is an observation.
1) I showed up 15 minutes late for tonight's ride. To my surprise everyone was still waiting for us. If that were a road ride I most likely would have ridden alone.
2)During this ride I was fortunate enough to be among the fast group, and at every trail head we stopped and waited for the slower riders to catch up. No snarky comments, and no boasting about speed.
3)At the end of the ride we met everyone at the parking lot. All smiling faces, and no one was in a rush to leave. I pulled out a cooler of beer and offered up its contents to any takers. Everyone smiled, but then then produced their own beer. Then one guy pops open his trunk and unloads a pile of firewood and promptly builds a Texas-style wildfire. Everyone then sits around talking about mountain bike related stuff and drinks their beer. If that were a road ride the first few guys to get back to the parking lot would have undressed, packed up and left. Even if everyone caught them before they left there would have been a comment about how how the leaders were hammering, even though they haven't been feeling good, or they haven't ridden much lately. No one would have produced any beer for themselves, let alone for anyone else.
Mountain bikers, for some reason, are way friendlier, and seem to take their sport much less seriously once they're off the bike. I say this all as a former mountain bike rider/racer and a now converted Road racer.
Not so much a complaint as it is an observation.
