“Dude, don’t be lame.”
That’s not a direct quote from my buddy (I can’t repeat his exact words in polite company), but that’s the gist of what he was saying. We had made plans to go on an adventurous, all-day mountain bike ride more than a month in advance, and I was wavering. His response to my iffiness cut straight to the heart of the matter: If I skip mountain biking, I suck. If I go mountain biking, I’m cool.
Peer pressure, plain and simple.
We started planning these big bike rides a month in advance because that’s the only way to make them happen. The idea is to spend most of the day on the bike, exploring epic trails that show off the best of the Southern Appalachians. We have wives and kids and jobs, so if we want to do anything fun and time consuming, we have to treat it like a work meeting and make an Apple Calendar Invite where we each have to affirm our attendance by checking a box. It’s like we’re scheduling a Zoom call with our bosses. It’s our own little form of cultural appropriation.
My buddy calls the meetings “Sexy Dudes on Bikes” because he’s weird.
Bringing the organizational skills from the corporate world into our adventures is the only way we’ll ever be able to do big rides, because it forces us to plan in advance and tell everyone in our lives that we’ll be busy, and we won’t be able to address those TPS reports or pick up the kids from soccer on that particular Wednesday. But even with all that foresight, I still find myself wavering the day before each ride. There are a hundred reasons to skip a “Sexy Dudes on Bikes” meeting. It’s the middle of the week, first of all, and I have a job. My bike has a flat tire. It’s kind of cold. There are too many leaves on the trails. The trailhead is so far…I always have second thoughts because I’m a lazy guy who generally avoids situations where I have to leave the house and put on real pants.
But this is why it’s so important for adults to have friends. Because a good friend will not only help you move or lend you his lawnmower, but he’ll also be there to apply the subtle pressure necessary to encourage you to do things that go against your true nature or better judgment.
I said I would blow off work and family on a weekday to ride bikes like a child, and I have good friends who hold me accountable and force me to do that very thing via the not-so-subtle use of peer pressure.
I don’t want to be lame. I want to be cool. So I show up and I ride bikes.
Peer pressure isn’t always a good thing. There are countless tattoos, piercings, and prison sentences that can be directly traced back to the art form of convincing your friends to do stupid shit. I’ve personally done some questionable things under the influence of peers. Mostly misdemeanors, but if you look closely there might be some potential arson charges when a bit of harmless fun with fireworks went awry. Later in life, peer pressure helped me hit jumps I had no business hitting, both on mountain bikes and skis (and on one occasion, in a grocery cart). I landed some of those jumps. Others caused lifelong injuries that alert me when there’s a change in the barometric pressure.
But peer pressure has also encouraged me to do great things, like dawn patrol ski sessions, marathon runs, and multi-day SUP adventures. And on this day, instead of sitting at my computer, I’m gingerly pedaling through thick leaves, hoping the layer of colorful fluff isn’t hiding baby heads that will send my front tire askew. Before this, there was a 2,000-foot climb where I verbally expressed my desire to be back at home in front of my computer in pajama pants. But soon enough we were on Butter Gap, a mostly downhill romp that flips all of that elevation on its head and sends us careening in a gaggle of smiles and giggles to the fish hatchery in Pisgah National Forest.
If I had planned this big ride solo, I never would have showed up at the trailhead. I would’ve started wavering 24 hours in advance and ultimately decide to scrap the all-day ride and settle for a short road spin around town. I remember once in my 20s I decided to fast for a day. 24 hours, no food. Just water. By breakfast I decided that eating a cup of rice would be fine. One cup of rice in 24 hours, that’s basically a fast, right? But then I figured it’s not healthy to eat rice without a protein, so I should have a cup of beans too. And if I’m eating rice and beans, might as well make it a burrito with chicken and sour cream, maybe some onions and guacamole…Within an hour of starting my fast I decided that eating burritos for 24 hours would be just as good.
I just don’t have that internal fire to do hard things on my own. But give me friends who hold me accountable, and it’s a different story. A little bit of peer pressure, applied for good not evil, can be a beautiful thing. It can force a grown-ass man with a full-time job and kids to ditch his responsibilities for a day and rekindle his love for riding dirt on expensive bikes. Mountain biking is fun. It’s not efficient. I have to drive to and from a trailhead, which kills part of the day, and I can burn more calories in less time by riding a road bike or hitting the gym, but every mountain bike ride is a little adventure. Every mountain bike ride is fun. And big rides that have you out in the woods all day are even more fun.
I take it easy throughout the ride because I’m a little rusty. I’ve spent too much time at my computer, so I’m a ghost of my former self on the mountain bike. I need to fix that. I need to ride trails more. I need to get out of the office more. But on this particular day, it doesn’t matter, because I showed up. I rode my bike on a weekday when I should’ve been sitting at my computer firing off emails. On this day, I am not lame.
In the parking lot, after the ride, we immediately get on our phones and set an Apple calendar invite for the next “Sexy Dudes on Bikes” meeting. Peer pressure is a good thing.
Cover photo: “Dude, don’t be lame.”
That’s not a direct quote from my buddy (I can’t repeat his exact words in polite company), but that’s the gist of what he was saying. We had made plans to go on an adventurous, all-day mountain bike ride more than a month in advance, and I was wavering. His response to my iffiness cut straight to the heart of the matter: If I skip mountain biking, I suck. If I go mountain biking, I’m cool.
Peer pressure, plain and simple.
We started planning these big bike rides a month in advance because that’s the only way to make them happen. The idea is to spend most of the day on the bike, exploring epic trails that show off the best of the Southern Appalachians. We have wives and kids and jobs, so if we want to do anything fun and time consuming, we have to treat it like a work meeting and make an Apple Calendar Invite where we each have to affirm our attendance by checking a box. It’s like we’re scheduling a Zoom call with our bosses. It’s our own little form of cultural appropriation.
My buddy calls the meetings “Sexy Dudes on Bikes” because he’s weird.
Bringing the organizational skills from the corporate world into our adventures is the only way we’ll ever be able to do big rides, because it forces us to plan in advance and tell everyone in our lives that we’ll be busy, and we won’t be able to address those TPS reports or pick up the kids from soccer on that particular Wednesday. But even with all that foresight, I still find myself wavering the day before each ride. There are a hundred reasons to skip a “Sexy Dudes on Bikes” meeting. It’s the middle of the week, first of all, and I have a job. My bike has a flat tire. It’s kind of cold. There are too many leaves on the trails. The trailhead is so far…I always have second thoughts because I’m a lazy guy who generally avoids situations where I have to leave the house and put on real pants.
But this is why it’s so important for adults to have friends. Because a good friend will not only help you move or lend you his lawnmower, but he’ll also be there to apply the subtle pressure necessary to encourage you to do things that go against your true nature or better judgment.
I said I would blow off work and family on a weekday to ride bikes like a child, and I have good friends who hold me accountable and force me to do that very thing via the not-so-subtle use of peer pressure.
I don’t want to be lame. I want to be cool. So I show up and I ride bikes.
Peer pressure isn’t always a good thing. There are countless tattoos, piercings, and prison sentences that can be directly traced back to the art form of convincing your friends to do stupid shit. I’ve personally done some questionable things under the influence of peers. Mostly misdemeanors, but if you look closely there might be some potential arson charges when a bit of harmless fun with fireworks went awry. Later in life, peer pressure helped me hit jumps I had no business hitting, both on mountain bikes and skis (and on one occasion, in a grocery cart). I landed some of those jumps. Others caused lifelong injuries that alert me when there’s a change in the barometric pressure.
But peer pressure has also encouraged me to do great things, like dawn patrol ski sessions, marathon runs, and multi-day SUP adventures. And on this day, instead of sitting at my computer, I’m gingerly pedaling through thick leaves, hoping the layer of colorful fluff isn’t hiding baby heads that will send my front tire askew. Before this, there was a 2,000-foot climb where I verbally expressed my desire to be back at home in front of my computer in pajama pants. But soon enough we were on Butter Gap, a mostly downhill romp that flips all of that elevation on its head and sends us careening in a gaggle of smiles and giggles to the fish hatchery in Pisgah National Forest.
If I had planned this big ride solo, I never would have showed up at the trailhead. I would’ve started wavering 24 hours in advance and ultimately decide to scrap the all-day ride and settle for a short road spin around town. I remember once in my 20s I decided to fast for a day. 24 hours, no food. Just water. By breakfast I decided that eating a cup of rice would be fine. One cup of rice in 24 hours, that’s basically a fast, right? But then I figured it’s not healthy to eat rice without a protein, so I should have a cup of beans too. And if I’m eating rice and beans, might as well make it a burrito with chicken and sour cream, maybe some onions and guacamole…Within an hour of starting my fast I decided that eating burritos for 24 hours would be just as good.
I just don’t have that internal fire to do hard things on my own. But give me friends who hold me accountable, and it’s a different story. A little bit of peer pressure, applied for good not evil, can be a beautiful thing. It can force a grown-ass man with a full-time job and kids to ditch his responsibilities for a day and rekindle his love for riding dirt on expensive bikes. Mountain biking is fun. It’s not efficient. I have to drive to and from a trailhead, which kills part of the day, and I can burn more calories in less time by riding a road bike or hitting the gym, but every mountain bike ride is a little adventure. Every mountain bike ride is fun. And big rides that have you out in the woods all day are even more fun.
I take it easy throughout the ride because I’m a little rusty. I’ve spent too much time at my computer, so I’m a ghost of my former self on the mountain bike. I need to fix that. I need to ride trails more. I need to get out of the office more. But on this particular day, it doesn’t matter, because I showed up. I rode my bike on a weekday when I should’ve been sitting at my computer firing off emails. On this day, I am not lame.
Cover photo: Photo courtesy of the Author.
