Just Ride is a new book written by Grant Petersen. Grant is a bicycle industry icon and owner of Rivendell Bicycles in New York City. If you feel that you don’t need to be in a hurry every time you want to ride your bike, if a twenty minute townie ride gives you as much pleasure as a five hour death march then read this book. Bicycles and bicycle riding have as many different connotations as the people who ride them. Grant gets this and writes eloquently about it. I’ve read excerpts from the book and can’t wait to read the whole thing.
Here’s a great quote from the book:

“Racers don’t have the luxury of being able to enjoy the bike. They don’t play on the bike, they train. They recover from training with “easy” fifty-to-sixty mile days. No thanks, man. I’d rather goof off on my bike, or ride it to work, or downtown. I still ride hard, but only when I want to, and only for as long as I want to. When I was racing years ago, I’d always figure I had to continually punish myself on hard days, because in a race, somebody’s always feeling peppy just when you’re gassed, and you have to be able to go with them, even though your body says No. Once you give it up, you can listen to the No—-it’s a good thing to do, in fact. Or, you don’t even have to reach the No point in the first place. Who cares?”

And just ride.