Riding Alone.
Group rides have their place. But the solo ride — no wheel to follow, no pace to match, no conversation to maintain — is where most cyclists find out who they actually are.
Published
2024-11-28
Read time
4 min read
No One to Hide Behind
The group ride is a negotiation. You draft, you take turns, you match the pace of the people around you. On a good day, the collective energy carries you to speeds and distances you wouldn’t reach alone. On a bad day, you hang on and hope no one notices.
Solo riding removes the negotiation. There is no wheel to sit on, no average speed to maintain, no obligation to anyone. The pace you ride is the pace you chose. And because it’s the pace you chose, you are entirely accountable for it.
The Honesty of It
Experienced cyclists recognise the first climb of a solo ride as a kind of negotiation with themselves. The legs feel different without an audience. Some days they feel better — liberated from the pressure of matching someone else. Some days they feel worse, because there is nothing to distract from the discomfort.
Both are useful. Cycling alone, over enough time and enough miles, teaches a kind of self-knowledge that has practical applications far beyond the bike.
The Route Is Yours
Alone, you can take the long way without explaining it. You can stop and look at a view without feeling the group’s impatience. You can turn down an unsigned road because it looked interesting, and if it leads nowhere, that’s fine too.
The best rides we’ve ever heard from riders who use our bikes have one thing in common: they were unplanned, they were long, and they were alone.