I was just at Go Clipless and I saw their newest Cool Bike Quotes, both from Missy Giove.

Mountain biking can't be square and clean-cut 'cause it's not a square sport. It's gotta stay tribal.

This is very true, not just about Mountain Biking, but biking in general. No matter how much I might not like my formor boss some times, we were both cyclists and we had that bit of common ground. No matter how bad things got at work, we could always talk about riding.

The whole tribal thing does seem to come out more in Mountain Biking, due to the fact that unless you are racing it is more of a group activity, where as road biking seems to be more of a competion, but it is there none the less.

I don't want cycling to become an elite sport like skiing. To me it's a soul sport, an art form. I see the world in a different light when I'm looking at it from a bicycle.

This is something I think most of my cycling friends have forgotten. The reason why we started riding was to take part in an activity as a group. Unfortunatly a couple of us, who use to be some of the bigger biking advocates in the area, have moved exclusively to road biking. Nothing wrong with that, but when we did the group rides, they were always going off on their own, leaving me and my dad to guide the group. One person even went so far as saying that he didn't want less experienced riders with us because they were slowing us down. After I confronted him about that, he chose not to ride with us again.

Any time you get a bunch of guys together, whether it is cycling, eating, or driving nails, you are going to have competition. But once some people stop focusing on the fun and start focusing on solely on beating others, then you get that kind of elitism that can be the demise of a cycling group. with the exception of myself trying to keep the group rides going, an failing miserably,the elitist views of a few killed the group rides. I just hope that next year, with me able to ride in the afternoon more, we can get back to the level we were at a few years ago.