Competitive road cycling is a professional sports discipline with trophies, records and big money at stake. Yet more and more often, people are riding road bikes simply for pleasure.
For most of us in Poland and the wider region, bicycle racing has been primarily associated with the Peace Race and a game that was quite popular with kids a while back. Each player had a set of bottle caps decorated with the flags of the countries starting in the race. Fierce battles would ensue in yards and playgrounds between the ‘cyclists’ of East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Poland. With flushed faces, adults would follow the television broadcasts of each subsequent stage. Yet, at the time, both children and adults could only dream of owning a real road bike.
The situation has radically changed today. The Peace Race and most of the countries participating in it are now long gone, the bottle cap game has become outdated, but on the other hand, more and more people are riding road bikes in Poland. In a study conducted two years ago, 11% of the 25,000 cyclists in the country declared that they indeed ride road bikes. And that trend is growing visibly. Reasons for this include the constant improvement of bicycle infrastructure in cities and better access to cycling equipment. Traffic regulations have also been changed to allow two bikes to ride next to each other. The popularity of this discipline of sport has also been boosted by the world success of two Polish cyclists, Rafał Majka and Michał Kwiatkowski, who have inspired a number of people to try it out. Some of them fell in love with road bikes to the point that what was once a Sunday hobby became a lifestyle and an engine for serious life changes.
“My adventure with road bikes started six years ago. My motivation to get on a bike was simple and rather typical: I wanted to shed some weight and finally find pleasure in doing sports. At the beginning, I couldn’t ride any more than 30 kilometres. My pulse would jump up to 130, while the pain of sitting made it impossible for me to continue. Today, I can go as far as 200 kilometres. I am motivated by the constant desire to push the limits and the maximum physical capacity of my body.
A significant moment here was when I started working with an expert who organized my training sessions. Before, I would haphazardly ride my bike, just to cover as many kilometres as possible. As a result, I would come back home angry and exhausted.
Today, I experience so much pleasure in riding that I am willing to resign from many other activities just to ‘go out’ and ride my bike. I can safely say that I am addicted.”
Łukasz “Globus” Pierzynowski
Mamil
‘Mamil’ is an acronym of the English term: middle-aged man in Lycra, created by a company involved in market research and the creation of client profiles for the needs of the world of business. A ‘mamil’ is a middle-aged gentleman clad in a professional cycling outfit made from Lycra, who rides an expensive bicycle. The term has quickly become a part of everyday language in Australia and Great Britain. It may indeed have a slightly ironic overtone, but it is also rather endearing, as for the most part mamils tend not to treat themselves too seriously, and approach the matter with a healthy dose of humour.
Starting in 2014, Mark Hadlow, known for his portrayal of Dori, a Dwarf in the Hobbit trilogy, staged a monodrama in New Zealand called Mamil. During the performance, the actor never stopped pedalling his road bike mounted on the stage, and told the story of how he managed to squeeze himself into a Lycra jersey, how he selected special shoes that he can’t detach from the pedals, and how he bought an uncomfortable Italian bicycle saddle that cost – a mere trifle – $400. He also added that his wife officially threatened to divorce him if he were to walk up to her in his cycling outfit in a public place.
It all sounds like the description of a classic middle-age crisis, yet cycling turns out to be an antidote for the many quandaries associated with this. It allows you to regain your youthful figure, cures you of many lifestyle diseases, and is a form of therapy. As for the tight Lycra outfit, which is quite often merciless in how it exhibits the figure of the cyclist, it is simply the most comfortable option.
“A good cycling jersey is flexible, wicks sweat away from the skin and dries instantaneously; it’s not a matter of fashion, but rather a practical common sense approach. It’s impossible to ride in regular sweat pants and a T-shirt; cotton does not wick away sweat and causes too much drag. To round off my set, I have shorts with a foam insert in the place where I meet the saddle. I suffered tremendously the first two weeks of riding, but now I can’t imagine having anything but a sports saddle.
I started riding in the morning before work, and I would be bursting with energy the entire day. I managed to spread the bug to a few people at work, some of whom were cycling before, and that way we created a group that would have otherwise never come into being. Today, I feel very much at ease in a Lycra jersey and shorts, and road biking has become my way to get rid of stress and… regain my self-confidence.”
Tadeusz, vice-president of a large company in Warsaw
Peloton
Cycling is a team sport, against all appearances. Riding in a well-led peloton lets you achieve better results with reduced effort. Leaders riding in front face the air resistance directly; as a result, those in the middle can save their energy. The most popular method is riding in twos, where after a defined stretch has been achieved, the leading pair moves out and goes to the end of the peloton, letting the cyclists riding behind them take on the role of ‘pulling’ the group ahead. Professional bicycle racing is 80% based on tactics. There are competitors who never achieve spectacular success, and their only role is to ‘cover’ the top players, who are saving their strength for the finish.
Amateur pelotons are more casual, but even they have special set of rules of behaviour; being familiar with these rules guarantees effective and safe training sessions. It is this particular road etiquette that makes road biking a sport that is elite but also social, because, after all, regularly riding with someone ‘wheel to wheel’ over dozens of kilometres is like going through thick and thin with them.
“There are really a lot enthusiasts riding road bikes, so it isn’t hard to find a place and time when you can meet a group who you could start riding with. You’ll learn the ABCs of road biking while you’re at it and become familiar with routes that have already been tested.
The We Ride group, which is based in Warsaw and was created on my initiative, has cyclists who ride a minimum of 3500 kilometres a year. We managed to quickly put together a strong team in which we were able to conquer increasingly longer distances.
I don’t live in the city anymore though. I moved to the Mazury (Masuria) region in northeast Poland, where the We Ride Mazury group is developing little by little. The routes in Mrągowo and the surrounding area are varied, the views are much more beautiful, the air is cleaner, while cars are more sparse. Come on over!
Although, in the end, it really doesn’t matter where you are – the important thing is to keep on cycling. Thanks to the use of applications that record our GPS track, our pulse or power in watts, and save that data, our rides can be compared to those of other people who did the same stretch. You can share routes, announce training sessions and observe the results of your group.”
Aleks Grynis
Tour de Poland
Be it Kashubia or Bieszczady, Pomerania or Lower Silesia, Masovia or Masuria, you can do road biking anywhere. Yet many cyclists believe that the mountains are the kingdom of cycling and that’s where your emotions run the highest. A particularly exceptional place is a 200-kilometre circuit running through the Tatra Mountains. The route takes you through mountain localities in the Polish and Slovak Tatras, where you conquer an elevation range of 2500m and enjoy breathtaking views while you’re at it. Most cyclists split the route into two days, but there are those who choose to deal with the entire circuit in a single day.
A big threat to cyclists travelling on Polish roads are drivers who have no respect for road biking enthusiasts, as well as potholes in the roads; the more expensive your wheels are, the more serious an issue this becomes. So it’s worth your while to be as visible as you can when you’re riding and… buy a good tyre repair kit.
“The entire circuit is very interesting, but my favourite part is the pass through Stary Smokowiec and Štrbské Pleso. These towns look a bit like Swiss resorts, and it’s a good idea to take a break there to have something to eat or drink. A small pale ale tastes great and will give you the boost of energy you need before the Huciańska Pass, where you have a stretch of nearly five kilometres uphill at a gradient of 3.6%. I ride the circuit several times a year and it’s always beautiful: in the spring, you can still see snow on the summits, in summer you’ve got the sun and blue skies, while in autumn everything is flaming in colour. You just need to remember that when you’re in Slovakia, you can’t ride in pairs. This makes drivers very nervous, and besides you can get a fine.”
Jacek Borgosz, amateur cyclist from Zakopane
Wheels on your holiday
Your appetite grows as you cycle more, and there is no lack of beautiful venues: the winding roads around Lake Garda or the route along the French Riviera are classics that any respected cyclist wants to conquer and weigh their results against the champions. Cycling trips along the routes of the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia stages have become popular, or even packing your bike into a special plastic case and flying off to warm and exotic parts of the world during periods of foul weather with snow showers back home.
“Around the end of December and beginning of January, I try to run away to Mallorca with my bike. It’s only a three-hour flight, and the prices there are lower than in Zakopane! Varied terrain, a comfortable 17 degrees Celsius, and you can do some cycling to keep in shape.
I brought a few good pictures back from Mallorca, but in my work I like to play with urban architecture and its geometry. Photography is the ability to frame a picture, and road biking feels perfectly at home against the backdrop of shopping malls or city lanes.
Road biking is a new passion for me, but it is yet another discipline of sports, following snowboarding, that I can do on both sides of the lens. I find it just as satisfying to ride my bike as I do to photograph cyclists.”
Rafał Wielgus, actions sports photographer
Crisis?
A lot has changed since the times when Lech Piasecki and Olaf Ludwig were fighting for the leader jersey of the Peace Race. Road bikes, rarely available in communist Poland, are experiencing a revival today. After years of the reign of the omnipresent mountain bike, people once again want to ride road bikes. The young and the old are riding them, along with bike messengers, MTB competitors, students and bank directors. We’re also seeing women on road bikes, who are more and more often creating groups and fighting for their position in the peloton on equal footing with men.
The road bike fashion has also revived the bicycle business. Shops are selling previously-unseen volumes of jerseys and biking shorts, helmets, shoes and bicycles, the prices of which are comparable to those seen on second-hand car lots. Road biking is not a cheap sport and you need to devote a lot of money to it. Besides, any sport that you want to be involved in on a higher level than ‘Sunday hobby’ has its price. However, if we look at the benefits of regular physical activity, which includes enhancing your physical fitness, regaining a slim figure or boosting your self-confidence, no price seems to be too high.
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