The moment when you walk out of the bike store with your new, first "real" mountain biike.

On a 400k Audax ride, after having started at 5am and done 250 - 300ks, you enter the night. You are tired and sore but you know you "only" have 100 - 150ks to home and now the night wraps around you and your world becomes the headlight beam and nothing else.

On December 31 I rode from Asheville to Black Mountain and back. It was pretty sunny and 56 degrees. What a perfect day!!! (Today, Jan 3, the thermometer is down to 29 degrees. What a shocking change.)

When being pursued on a climb, standing and sprinting like crazy the moment you're around a bend or switchback where the pursuer can't see you and sitting down and appearing to be on a relaxed steady civil cadence as soon as he is in view again. I KNOW I'm not the only one who does this (or am I?). Name withheld.

- The feeling of accomplishment you always feel at doing track stands. On road bikes, against any old rock in the road. - The pride of making it home despite being bonked for the last hour of your ride and suffering in a way only a cyclist could understand. - The sense of place cycling gives you in the areas you've ridden. Later, driving adar on those same roads can remind you of this. - After years of NOT riding, testing out bicycles at bike shops: the legs remember... - The sweet mellifluous sound of Phil and Paul MAKES broadcast bicycle racing in English. No other combination seems as good. - The fact that cyclists know the geography of obscure European towns, the names of the climbs in those towns, and basically the entire geography of France, Belgium and Spain; based purely on cycle races that have been there. - My understanding of Northern California is ENTIRELY based on the bicycle races I have done or coached athletes in bike races there. - Nevada City. - The Koppenberg. - Ernesto Colnago. - L' Alpe D' Huez - The utter weirdness of the general touring cycling population and to a (much) lesser extent bicycle racers. Easily the most definably individual and eccentric population in existence. - The simpatico created by suffering and the risk of death at every turn from a harsh yet beautifully challenging car and obstacle-filled milieu; which is the very essence of cyclists everywhere.

This is just one of many lists, but this appears to be the most important. Thank you for making and publishing it.

Getting into an arguement with a driver, and winning that arguement because you weren't in the wrong, he was!!

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