Choose Bikes

Choose bikes.

Choose the irrational joy of waking up before the city has fully decided what kind of day it’s going to be. Choose clipping in while half-asleep, pretending the first ten pedal strokes don’t feel like a personal attack. Choose cold fingers, hot coffee, chain grease on your calf, and the deeply suspicious optimism of checking the wind direction like it’s going to respect your plans.

Choose Lycra. Choose wool socks. Choose a drawer full of gloves, none of which are right for today’s weather. Choose explaining tire pressure to someone who didn’t ask. Choose pretending you can feel the difference between 78 and 82 PSI. Choose the noble art of spending three thousand dollars to save ninety grams and then carrying two burritos in your jersey pocket.

Choose the group ride.

Choose the rollout, the nods, the quiet judgment of mismatched kit, the person who says “not spicy today” and then attacks every segment like there’s prize money at the end. Choose wheels humming in formation. Choose trust at 26 miles an hour. Choose the sacred language of flicked elbows, pothole calls, half-wheels, soft pedaling, and one jabroni who absolutely will not stop surging.

Choose the lakefront. Choose Sheridan. Choose Milwaukee Avenue. Choose that one stretch of road that has been under construction since the invention of the bicycle. Choose dodging doors, dogs, scooters, tourists, potholes, puddles, Ubers, and the existential threat of a wet leaves. Choose being both invisible and somehow in everyone’s way.

Choose hills even though Chicago barely has any, and choose calling them hills anyway. Choose headwinds that feel biblical. Choose tailwinds that make you believe in destiny. Choose rain that starts as “not too bad” and becomes a full-body negotiation with your life choices.

Choose the bike shop.

Choose talking about bottom brackets like they’re moral philosophy. Choose nodding thoughtfully at components you cannot afford. Choose buying a tube, leaving with bar tape, chain lube, a new light, and the vague sense that your bike still needs “just one more thing.” Choose the mechanic who can diagnose a creak by sound and the rider who cannot accept that the creak is their knee.

Choose training plans. Choose ignoring training plans. Choose Strava. Choose pretending not to care about Strava. Choose caring very deeply about Strava. Choose segments, KOMS, effort scores, heart-rate zones, power meters, normalized power, FTP tests, and the unique humiliation of being destroyed by a junior named “Brayden” on a steel frame with a basket.

Choose bonking.

Choose the moment your body files a formal complaint and your brain starts bargaining with a gas station burrito. Choose gummy bears as medicine. Choose gas station Red Bull as sacred fuel. Choose the spiritual clarity of eating a smashed granola bar at mile 62 while standing next to a cornfield, convinced you have never been wiser.

Choose bikes because they are machines, but also therapy. Choose them because they are simple until they are complicated, cheap until they are expensive, freeing until there’s a crosswind, and relaxing until someone says, “Want to sprint for the sign?”

Choose the commute that turns into a ride. Choose the ride that turns into a story. Choose the story that gets exaggerated every time it’s told. Choose friends you only recognize in sunglasses and helmets. Choose tan lines. Choose saddle sores. Choose the sound of a clean drivetrain. Choose the quiet little click of a perfect shift.

Choose getting older but not softer. Choose lungs burning, legs aching, and still finding one more gear. Choose the absurd dignity of suffering voluntarily with people you love, on roads you know, chasing nothing but momentum.

Choose bikes.

Choose the road, the trail, the track, the gravel, the alley, the path, the long way home.

Choose cycling.

Choose life at 90 cadence.

Written as an ode to the iconic “Choose Life” monologue in Trainspotting.