Curious what sports, if any, people played and how you got into cycling.
Personally I was a long distance runner…. But I know footballers, hockey players, skaters, surfers, soccer… who all can throw down on the bike. The bike world no doubt is a melting pot.
I’m a noob, started 1.5 years ago now in my mid-40s. I only wish I would have found it earlier and can’t help but wonder how fast I would have been in peak form on todays bikes. I’m here now though.
So how’d you get here?
I… Played video games. All the way until I was 32-33 and had my first son and realized I was not going to keep up with him if I didn’t get physical. I started running and dropped from ~250lb to 150 these days. I picked up a cheap used road bike in 2018 (2008 Specialized Roubaix 56cm which was huge for me but also didn’t stop me from doing a solo 70 mile ride using my running fitness), got a newer one in 2020 (2018 Trek Domane DI2), and now also a TT bike (2011 Felt DA). I mainly cycle, but do some running and triathlon events now. But ya, this is all in my 30s so it’s all fun and new and I wish I had started it all when I was a teen.
I played baseball. got here because a friend of mine was into mountain biking and i had recently had a breakup and needed something to do with my free time and get into shape. Enjoyed bouncing off of trees so much that I got into it and found a riding buddy at work that I was able to be somewhat competitive with. That competitiveness turned into a summer mountain bike racing series I did for a few years along with the occasional longer events. Got into road biking a bit later after doing a charity ride and becoming friends with another mountain biker who had a road group. Found some good group rides that crushed me for a couple years before i started to get fit. Found trainer road through the podcast after my son was born and trying to get back into it. Been going strong ever since.
I played American Football. Linebacker. After high school I joined the military. I liked the gym, but hated running. Messed up a knee running in combat boots. When I got out, I went to college and met a neighbor who was into mtb. I also ended up buying a road bike. Moved to a very large city with terrible infrastructure, took a great job with long hours and lots of travel and gave it all up for over a decade. Tried to run a few times but would always end up injuring that knee again. Had a kid and moved to the suburbs where there is a fantastic mtb system and drivers are used to seeing road bikes on weekend mornings and started all over again.
I grew up playing baseball and football, only did a year of football in high school. I liked riding with friends and so Bmx took over my life and haven’t stopped riding since 14. I wasn’t having fun playing those sports anymore being yelled at and all that. Instead my friends and I built dirt jumps in the woods and rode around cities causing havoc in a fun way. Way more fun and I wouldn’t have changed a thing, all my friends from high school still ride. We graduated to mountain bikes and drop bar bikes. I still goto skateparks every now and then, it’s too much fun.
Went to a high school with just under 2000 students:
Ran track in college but spent more time injured than competing due to knee tendonitis. This led to me deciding to by my first real road bike (Trek 1000…because it was on sale, it was red, and lance rode a trek and was in the middle of his 7 year win* streak at the tour). Fell in love with riding a bike immediately
Cross Country and Track & Field (3K and 5K). Also raced bicycles, but it wasn’t an official HS sport.
Was good enough to score points, co-captain the team, and qualify for the state championships in the 3K as a senior. Ran two years in college but wasn’t quick enough to be competitive. Left the team (*) and stayed fit with a mix of riding, running, skiing and weightlifting.
On Edit:
(*) “Left the team”. But because I’m a total nerd, and went to a small school, offered to help out with home meets. Ended up learning the ins and outs of timing and officiating. Skills that have never been used since.
I was a profoundly unathletic kid. Slow, weak, and overweight. For most of my early life I had the physical capabilities of a heavy reader. I did, however, as most kids do, ride a BMX bike all over my small rural town.
When I was around 24 I had an experience going hiking with some friends. We hiked 16 miles and it was the hardest thing I had ever done up to that point. I couldn’t believe how bad/great I felt after. I started hiking most weekends, quit smoking, improved my diet, and (mostly) quit using drugs. I started dating a woman who suggested that I would also probably like cycling. Bought a cheap bike, went out for a ride and that was that. Changed my life. I gradually, over years, began riding more and more. Now at 40 I am a semi-competitive athlete and I can hardly believe it.
Rugby and then distance running (late 70’s to early 80’s)
Does chugging beer count? We were harmless delinquents back in the 80’s - drinking and smoking. I’m actually surprised I’m not dead and have halfway decent fitness in my 50’s after all that nonsense.
I accidentally qualified for the team the school sent to the regional cross country one year because I was the fastest of the “not particularly popular with the sporty type kids” and was unaware of their “hide in the bushes till all the slots were taken” at the mandatory qualifying race tactic. Can’t remember what happened in the regionals race but I was not a cinderalla story who came away with an unlikely win.
Though music was my main thing, I played cricket outside of school. A general lack of hand eye coordination but an uncanny ability to know what was happening at all times lead me to umpiring, which in turn lead me to wanting to be more fit for umpiring, which in turn lead me to triathlon, which lead me to having 0 time to umpire. At least they dont hit hard balls in your direction in tri.
I played soccer (football, fútbol) basically my whole life up to freshman year of college, along with other sports here and there, but soccer was my main focus and competition. I’ve also ridden bikes for as long as I can remember, thanks to my dad’s interest and getting us started early, but I’ve never been a competitive rider. In the ten years since graduating college, opportunities for competitive sports have been scarce, so I mainly stick to biking, lifting weights, and the occasional jog now.
For what it’s worth, a couple of us in high school tried to get them to let us have a biking club, but they said it was too dangerous. Now, they have a full-on NICA team that looks really awesome and makes me only a little bit jealous of that opportunity…
I always loved sports, and played them throughout the year:
American Football in the fall, as a cornerback.
Hockey, my favorite, in the winter.
Rugby in the spring.
and Baseball during the summer.
Had a 90’s MTB (Gary Fisher) I used to commute with.
I cycled as a kid as a means of transport to see friends and whilst I did a lot of playground sports I never done anything competitive. I kinda fell out of the way of cycling after school when I got a car and didn’t really do any sports and got more into computer games. Somehow my weight stayed stable for those years (11.5st, 73kg). I then developed pancreatitis (the docs don’t know why it just came and went by its own accord) and that saw a dramatic weight loss in a very short period of time (2st, 13kg). I started work then just 8.6miles (14km) away but drove every day (I wouldn’t even have entertained cycling that distance on my mtb at the time a raleigh marauder IIRC). I then moved to Ireland in my mid 20s and nearly everyone was cycling to work but I considered at the time 10.6miles (17km) was also too far to cycle. Eventually I moved closer to work in Dublin and bought a cheap steel hybrid and started cycling but initially only as a means of transport. In my latter years there it did develop into more leisure cycling also and 10.6miles would have been doable then even on the cheap steel bike. I then moved back to Scotland and got my self an aluminium hybrid, initially for leisure and cycling to the station. The leisure stuff got longer (up to 100miles, 160km) and the latter developed to train morning, 17 mile (27km) cycle at night. In my early 30s I then moved about 3.2 miles (5km) from the office in circa 2006 and started cycling every day and coincided with me getting a road bike and I’ve been club cycling since and in the last 10 years TTing. After a battle with the big C in my early 40s I am hitting PRs for a lot of things in my mid to late 40s but I do wonder how much of it is to do with the equipment and if I’d had it when I was younger and seriously used it where I could have been.
Played American football and basketball in high school. I was good enough at football to be able to play in college. Never went near an endurance sport — and whenever I did, I was bad at it.
After spending most of my 20s in the pub, I somehow wandered into triathlon when I was about 28. I think I somehow got a hare-brained idea to do a marathon, but my knees were too damaged to handle the training, but they could take the varied training of tri. Doing Tri’s, I found that I was in the middle of the pack in the swim, in the top 10% of the bike and in the bottom 30% of the run. I also enjoyed training on the bike much more than the other two disciplines.
(Imagine how that played out during a race … I hunted down all the fast swimmers who got out of the water ahead of me on the bike, only to be passed by troves of jackrabbit runners on the 10k. I only ever did Olympic distance triathlon)
Then in my mid-30s I started a family and apparently used that as an excuse to get fat and sedentary.
In my early-40s we happened to take a family vacation to a beautiful area of Northern Michigan called Leelanau county … and while we were there I saw all these cyclist’s going up, down and over these incredibly steep hills with beautiful views and wide-shouldered roads. The next year we went back and I brought a $300 mountain bike and went on some rides. I ended up walking the bike up most the hills. The next year I bought a Cx bike (I didn’t know what Cyclocross was, but it fit me very well) and started riding in the early summer … in essence I was training for the hills. That year I was able to at least ride up all but the very steepest ramps.
Things progressed from there … entered a race, joined TR, etc., and I’m now 48 years old, have been within about +/- 5W of a 300 FTP for the last 2-3 years, am 50lbs lighter than my pre-cycling weight … and I’m in the top 10% on most of the KOM’s I had to walk my bike up 7-8 years ago.
Much like the OP, I wish I had gotten here earlier … but here I am🤘
I played basketball all through high school. was on a D3 college team before I quit to focus on getting PhD, and continued to play in city leagues up until COVID, played football - defensive end/safety, and I ran the 200m, high jumped, and threw the shot put for track. It is absolutely insane to me that I used to run the 200m dash reasonably well. I got into cycling when I bought a road bike to commute during grad school.
I grew up in Southern California in the late 70s early 80s. I played baseball and american football. However, I was also into surfing and skateboarding along with the vices that went with those sports at the time, so my high school sports career was short lived. I do wish that I swam and ran in HS.
I picked up running in my early 20s, cycling and swimming in my late 20s. I am a lot faster in all three sports today than I was at 30.
I grew up playing hockey into junior year of HS. I played varsity freshman year. Switched to run the 400m in track junior and senior year. Got invited to run in college being transformed into a 1500m runner. Had some chronic overuse injuries and switched to cycling only. Have been riding ever since.
I technically was given a road bike when I was 18 but didn’t use it for 2-3 years because I felt it was for skinny dorks who do stuff like run XC in HS! Lol
Competitive swimmer from 6 through 18, 4 years varsity in HS, had no desire to swim in college… and turned out I had no real desire to be in college either.
Joined the golf team for a few months freshman year to learn how to play golf for free and hang out with my friends. Track coach constantly tried to get me to join but I never was into running, sort of regret not taking him up on it.
As kids we were encouraged to try every sport we wanted at least one season, except football.
Skied → snowboarded → now ski/snowboard since I was about 12.
Always rode bikes, vacations were camping and taking bikes, going to be beach and taking bikes. My mom did the 5 boro bike tour while pregnant with my brother. We later did it as a whole family when I was 16 or 17. Always built jumps in the woods, main hang out was in the woods with bikes that sort of thing but didn’t actually start to compete until I raced BMX from about 13-15? Got a job at a bike shop and started racing MTBs from 15-17ish, life/cars got in the way after that and stopped racing. Bought a road bike in my early 20s (while I still had an in to get a discount where I formerly worked) didn’t ride it much until I decided to try triathlon in my late 20s. Been pretty consistent since then.
Basically always been an athlete even if I more often than not I don’t think of myself as one.
Played soccer all through to college, also weightlifted all through high school. After college i had two kids back to back, and spent years making my career in finance, until one day i met a new doctor who said i was “too fat and need to swim or ride a bike” asap. Couldn’t afford a pool so a bike it was; a Cannondale Synapse with a triple, soon upgraded to a Cervelo R2 and now a Basso Venta. Wish i’d started earlier, but i didn’t, so here I am, doing my best (started weightlifting again yesterday, yay)
