Excellent common-sense advice from someone who knows what they are talking about. Ever wish you could sit down with the bike shop owner for a few hours and pick their brain. This book is your chance. Great advice and makes sense to this Unracer.
Just Ride: A Radically Practical Guide to Riding Your Bike by Grant Petersen introduces us to those people who cycle not to race and not to get faster, but maybe just to get somewhere or to have fun. The recreational cyclist.
There are a lot of very expensive bikes and expensive gear. What Grant seems to set out to do in this book is to tell you that it’s not really needed to have some fun on a bike. Just because you have a bike doesn’t mean that you need to increase your FTP or find your optimal cadence. You can just ride to have fun and that can be enough.
You have way too many gears For all-around riding over a variety of surfaces and terrain, you need eight gears
Grant Petersen
I love this! Another one is to make it easier going up hills Grant suggests just standing up, you don’t have to shift down necessarily. There is nothing wrong with just getting up and letting your body weight on the pedals help propel the bike up the hill.
Look at the land as something to pass through, not to conquer
Grant Petersen
“Your bike will go where your eyes look”. Great advice. Another one he mentions you can turn with your hips, turn your hips in the direction you want to go and you don’t need to turn the handlebars. I’ve tried it and it works.
No matter how much you like it, bike riding shouldn’t be your only exercise. Ride your bike half of the time, then work the muscles that bike riding doesn’t
Grant Petersen
I highlight the quote above because I am guilty of this. I do add in yoga but really only so I can ride more without such stiff hips.
Just ride is a great book that reminds us that riding a bike doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or hard….just ride.