What is the obsession with going faster and faster?

[Hip Priest]

I'm just a big child. I can't help it. I can handle being overtaken by someone who looks like a pro (9 stone, shaved legs, fancy bike) but if it's anyone else I have to chase them down and drop them.

 

[musa]

i just want people on the bus to look at this cool dude go past them

 

[musa]

or its dr ferrari's training plan

 

[jdtate101]

I suspect like many who took up cycling in middle age, for me it was all about loosing the weight round my middle. What started as a weight loss thing has rapidly evolved into an all consuming passion whereby I really enjoy pushing myself to the limits. Seeing progress and bettering PB's is satisfying (as are doing the slower recovery rides). For me it's now less about the weight loss and more about increasing fitness and performance.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I suspect like many who took up cycling in middle age, for me it was all about loosing the weight round my middle. What started as a weight loss thing has rapidly evolved into an all consuming passion whereby I really enjoy pushing myself to the limits. Seeing progress and bettering PB's is satisfying (as are doing the slower recovery rides). For me it's now less about the weight loss and more about increasing fitness and performance.

This.

 

[dodd82]

I think many of us that give cycling a go will have some sort of sporting background, whether it's football in Sunday League or a badminton league, and anyone who plays sport has a natural competitiveness.

It doesn't need to be against another person - it's just a will to do the best that you can do.

 

[John90]

Each to their own. Personally I would rather leave the competitive element to proper bike racing. It's not very meaningful on the commute (there's a reason it's called 'silly') and it takes attention away from keeping body and soul together. Also, in the city at least, a personal best will be more dependent on lights, traffic density and route familiarity than speed. Fitness is a big part of why I ride but I enhance the benefit on my commute in that respect by using a MTB with fat knobbly tyres. I can well understand the thrill of getting up to high speed on a road bike but it's not a major deal for me. I admit that view is coloured somewhat by being a middle-aged cyclist.

 

[2Loose]

I'm not competitive (really), but getting the heart lungs and legs working when it is safe to do so is satisfying.

 

[HLaB]

Strava is where you wear a heart rate monitor while driving through a certain "segment" at 28.5mph,
while your girlfriend finds something to sooth her itchy tonsils.

Then you upload the record, win a KOM and nobody realizes you drove it because the heart rate shows
190bpm over the entire segment.

LMAO

 

[Andrew_P]

This made me go back and compare my rides from November 2010 (first ride on my new Roubaix) Then November 2011 and Then this week. This is why I push myself I am sure if I pootled and didn't push it the improvement would not have been the same.

 

[GrasB]

It all starts innocently, you want to get fit or keep fit. You have to push your self a bit & find you quite like the buzz off it. To maintain that same buzz you have to put pressure on your self to perform. Before you know it you've got kind of serious racing everyone else around for a bit of a challenge still after maintaining that buzz... no one is fast enough to challenge you so you start chasing PBs & getting in to proper training because you just want that buzz...

 

[paulw1969]

Good post! And some even better responses.

Can't help but push myself on my commute.......or for that matter when i am on a leisure ride....doesn't matter....can't help but push myself..(have i already said that?)......feels good when you pass others when your over forty, over weight and under fit!..........a need to get past pinch points is a big one for me at the minute what with the number of single lane road works......my commute can hardly be regarded as "picturesque" so quite frankly the sooner i get it over with the better....

 

[SomethingLikeThat]

Sometimes it is worth at least attempting to keep up with the pace of traffic, at the very least so you don't get pointlessly passed.

 

[GrasB]

Sometimes it is worth at least attempting to keep up with the pace of traffic, at the very least so you don't get pointlessly passed.

Keeping pace with traffic?.. I thought traffic was trying to keep pace with me

 

[John90]

... no one is fast enough to challenge you so you start chasing PBs...

LOL. First rule of CycleChat - everyone is faster than everyone else.