Union Alt-Cycliste Internationale

In my early 20s, when I started biking more regularly, I didn’t know what the UCI was. At the time, I was riding my bike almost every day to school, to work and around town for all my errands. I let my 1995 Toyota Corolla sit in my driveway untouched for months while I rode everywhere and all during that time, I’d never watched a Tour de France or heard of the Vuelta a España

After I graduated college, my then-boyfriend and I moved to a cabin on Vallecito Reservoir. He didn’t have a car, and we both loved riding bikes, so we often chose to pedal the 24 miles to Durango to run errands in the morning (in our street clothes and flip flops nonetheless), and then we’d ride back to Vallecito in the afternoon to work our night shifts at a popular lakeside restaurant. On weekends, we rode our bikes to area trailheads, and sometimes we’d pop over to Lemon Reservoir just for a picnic and a change of scenery. At that point I had heard of Lance Armstrong, but I didn’t know who Greg LeMond or Mark Cavendish were.  

By the time I was 24, I had sold my ’95 Corolla, so I rode my bike every day to my slightly out-of-town landscaping job. Every morning, I took the Animas River Trail about 7 miles south to work; sometimes I’d ride my bike the 7 miles back home, and sometimes I’d accept a lift from one of my coworkers. At that point I didn’t really care, specifically, how I got around. Just so long as I didn’t have to own a car.  

I hated driving, but I became obsessed with researching touring and utility bikes, specifically ones with rugged, indestructible reputations. I dreamed of steel frames, cargo racks and lofty panniers, and at that point, I don’t think I’d ever uttered the words “titanium” or “aero.” I did, however, talk about Brooks saddles, braze-ons and eyelet mounts with my other bike nerd friends.

I started studying parts of bikes and bike maintenance and spent my evenings leafing through “Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance.” I didn’t know what pelotons or watts were, but I did know how to change rim brakes, fix a tube flat and break a chain. 

I didn’t really know much about the Olympic Cycling Team, but when I was 25, I did my first long-distance bike tour starting in the Olympic Peninsula. A couple of friends and I toured about 500 miles down the West Coast to San Francisco, biking through mountain passes, coastal roads and redwood forests. We guerrilla camped on empty beaches with rising tides and poached closed-down camp sites, slept in baseball dugouts, soccer fields and once, in a closed-down elementary school. We ate peanut butter on the side of the road and stopped to play pool at dive bars in desolate towns. 

We pedaled our hearts out, never being professionals, knowing who the professionals were or keeping track of stats, data or any of the Grand Tours. We rode through three states, and the last things on our minds were big races, UCI rules or who won what. We were really thinking about campsites, what snacks we had, which ones we wanted, and when was the next time we could eat. 

We didn’t know about Bernard Hinault or rainbow jerseys, but our lives did revolve around bicycles. And, while I didn’t think so at the time, even though none of us had ever put a number plate on our handlebars or zipped up a Lycra jersey, we were still cyclists. 

We still rode all day, and we still do. Often referred to as “alternative cyclists” (but also, just plain “cyclist”), we spend a lot of our time riding from point A to point B and not necessarily toward finish lines. We pack our heavy steel bikes with even more heavy gear, and we go on great adventures, or short ones through the mountains or the desert for the weekend. We pick up our groceries, and we go to work and back home every day on our bicycles. We’re generally not really concerned with speed and often don’t keep track of the current pro cycling stats or know who had which jersey when.

But we do know the best bike bags for your cargo-carrying adventure, and how to find a good tour route. We’ve discovered the best, packable snacks and are always down for a round of pool at a good, desolate dive bar. We might know about the UCI now, but often don’t know what race is happening, or who’s involved. However, if you want – if you’re interested – we can recommend a really great snack, and a spot to guerilla camp after a long day of pedaling with your friends.