Road Cycling

8 Things Road Cyclists Can’t Live Without

Aside from a bike, obviously...

We can’t deny it. We’re creatures of habit when it comes to riding and whether that’s because you like to be efficient or because you’re superstitious, there’s nothing that will get in the way of a well deserved mid-ride café slice of cake.

Coffee

Have you ever met a cyclist who isn’t super ‘into’ coffee? No, didn’t think so. Liking bicycles and liking coffee is somehow linked on both a molecular and cosmic level. It’s a connection that even science cannot explain, although there are rumours about it being exclusive to awesome people.

How to use caffeine to improve your cycling performance

Road cyclists could never live without their espresso. Anyone who’s sipping on a latte should, of course, be shunned and if you’re looking to go healthy, you needn’t ditch your cuppa joe.

Electronic Weighing Scales

Scales are a must for any road cyclist to weigh out the appropriate amount of coffee (see above), or discover the true mass of the expensive carbon equipment they’ve just bought.

They will ideally be accurate to 0.01g. Because how will you brag about it properly unless you have accurate information?

Strava

If it wasn’t recorded on Strava, it didn’t happen. That’s the sad truth of being a road cyclist.

Which Strava personality are you?

And if a glitch in your 3G resulted in you being faster than a Tour de France pro, then you have every right to pretend that the reading is totally accurate and you are in fact Queen of the world.

Cycling cap

Whodathunkit that a piece of cotton could be so darn useful?

Let’s face it, you’re not a true road cyclist unless you have a collection of cycling caps, perhaps arranged in your cupboard according to preferred colour and tightness of elastic.

Gels, shots and blocks

An obsession with gels is the product of the masochistic personality type of a road cyclist. Sure, you could probably make something that’s not so processed, and that tastes a hell of a lot better, in your own kitchen.

Recipe: homemade energy gel

But having a gel is a coming-of-age experience when out on a training ride. Like learning how to like olives, being able to consume a gel without gagging/vomiting is a rite of passage that must be completed.

Eyewear

How would you cope with the blazing sunshine in the UK without Oakleys? You couldn’t. It would be carnage.

Cyclists would constantly be taking their hands off their bars to shield their eyes while crying “I’m melllltttttiiiiiinnnnnngggggg!”. Everyone would die. Why don’t non-cyclists understand this?!

Lycra

Without it, where would we be? Slow Town, that’s where. Because wearing skin-tight clothing is a must for shaving valuable seconds off your ride, no matter how long that ride is. A three-mile commute is long enough to make a saving, right?

Lycra also means you’re forced to examine your body every day, allowing you to stare, lovingly, at your gigantic thighs.

Chamois cream

When you tell a non-road-cyclist that you apply slimly lubricant to your nether-area before heading out for a ride, they often look shocked, appalled and scared for your mental health.

Treat your bum with ASSOS

They just can’t fathom how valuable it is to the discerning roadie. You’d have welts the size of a Tunnock’s teacake without it.

Have we missed anything? We’d love to hear what you can’t live without…