The allure of cycling is perhaps best encapsulated in the words of those who mount the saddle, be it the seasoned professional cyclist or the weekend sportive enthusiast. These quotes distil the dichotomy of pleasure and pain that cycling engenders, whether one is revelling in the joy of a leisurely ride or pushing the envelope for performance gains. The common thread? The liberating sensation that comes from pedalling away, a respite from life’s everyday tensions and tribulations.
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ToggleCycling isn’t just a physical endeavour; it’s an emotional and psychological journey as well. As we navigate our local byways, sometimes we discover not just unexplored landscapes, but new facets of ourselves. The feeling of conquering a gruelling climb or enduring a long-distance journey has a universal appeal. Everyone, at one point or another, has tasted the sweet agony of exertion while biking, an experience that connects us all on a visceral level.
And it’s not just about the individual experience. Observing other cyclists, tracing their routes, and absorbing their adventures, adds another layer of inspiration. This collective fascination with cycling has birthed a multitude of quotes that capture the essence of the sport. From the luminary athletes to the casual riders who take to the bike paths on weekends, a wealth of perspectives contributes to an ever-growing repository of cycling wisdom.
The bicycle, then, is more than just a mechanical object with two wheels; it’s a symbol, an embodiment of freedom, challenge, and camaraderie. As a result, bike ride quotes are abundant, reflecting the complex tapestry of experiences and emotions that this seemingly simple machine can invoke. Whether from the podium finishers who’ve carved their names in the annals of the sport, or from everyday riders who find solace and inspiration in turning the pedals, the bicycle remains a muse for commentary and reflection, resonating across different strata of society.
Pro Cyclist Quotes
Eddy Merckx
โRide as much or as little, as long or as short as you feel. But rideโ
โDonโt buy upgrades, ride up gradesโ
โThe race is won by the rider who can suffer the mostโ
โCyclists live with pain. If you canโt handle it you will win nothingโ
โWhen itโs hurting you, thatโs when you can make a differenceโ
Jens Voigt
โWhen my legs hurt, I say: โShut up legs! Do what I tell you to do!โ
โBeyond pain, there is a whole universe of more painโ
โIf you go (with a break), you can either win or not win. If you donโt go for it, you definitely wonโt winโ
Greg LeMond
โIt never gets easier, you just get fasterโ
โI have always struggled to achieve excellence. One thing that cycling has taught me is that if you can achieve something without a struggle itโs not going to be satisfyingโ
Assorted Bike Quotes by Pro Cyclists
โAs long as I breathe, I attackโ
Bernard Hinault
โCrashing is part of cycling as crying is part of loveโ
Johan Museeuw
โTo me, it doesnโt matter whether itโs raining or the sun is shining or whatever: as long as Iโm riding a bike I know Iโm the luckiest guy in the worldโ
Mark Cavendish
โRide a bike. Ride a bike. Ride a bikeโ โ
Fausto Coppi
โGood morale in cycling comes from good legsโ
Sean Yates
โYou can say that climbers suffer the same as the other riders, but they suffer in a different way. You feel the pain, but youโre glad to be thereโ
Richard Virenque
โI inherited that calm from my father, who was a farmer. You sow, you wait for good or bad weather, you harvest, but working is something you always need to doโ
Miguel Indurain
โIf you brake, you donโt win.โ
Mario Cipollini
โIn Mendrisio, I felt it; the exhilaration of what the bike has to offer. Itโs a simple machine that conjures a vast mix of emotions. It can evoke the senses and raise the spirits of people who watch. For those who ride it can seem like the perfect vehicle for transport. For those who race, thereโs no better sensation than being on top of your gear making mountains feel like flat roads. Cycling throws up plenty of obstacles, unknown territory, and high-speed split-second considerations. Where to next? Whatโs around the next corner? Who cares? Youโre flyinโ!โย
Cadel Evans after winning the World Championships
โPain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually, it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever”
Lance Armstrong
โRiding a bike is everything to a cyclist. The friendship and camaraderie you have with other cyclistsโฆ to a cyclist, it was the be-all and end-all of your life.โ
Tommy Godwin
โEmbrace your sweat. It is your essence and your emancipation.โ
Kristin Armstrong
โCycling isnโt a game, itโs a sport. Tough, hard and unpitying, and it requires great sacrifices. One plays football, or tennis, or hockey. One doesnโt play at cyclingโ
Jean de Gribaldy
โThe bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine.โ
John Howard
โIf you do something right the first time, then itโs not hard enough.โ
Danny MacAskill
โYou are one ride away from a good mood.โ
Sarah Bentley
โIt is the unknown around the corner that turns my wheelsโ
Heinz Stucke
โWhen your legs scream stop and your lungs are bursting, thatโs when it starts. Thatโs the hurt locker. Winners love it in thereโ
Chris McCormack
โYou canโt get good by staying home. If you want to get fast, you have to go where the fast guys areโ
Steve Larsen
โIt doesnโt matter if youโre sprinting for an Olympic gold medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, youโre missing the essence of the sportโ
Scott Martin
โPeople like to travel: that is why the grass is greener over the fence. We are walkers โ our natural means of travel is to put one foot in front of the other. The bicycle seduces our basic nature by making walking exciting. It lets us take 10-foot strides at 160 paces a minute. Thatโs 20 miles an hour, instead of 4 or 5โฆ It is not only how fast you go โ cars are faster and jet planes are faster still. But jet-plane travel is frustrating boredom โ at least the car gives the pictorial illusion of travel. Cycling does it all โ you have the complete satisfaction of arriving because your mind has chosen the path and steered you over it; your eyes have seen it; your muscles have felt it; your breathing, circulatory and digestive systems have all done their natural functions better than ever, and every part of your being knows you have travelled and arrived.โย
John Forester
Other Cycling and Cyclist Quotes
Not just renowned cyclists enjoy giving their opinions about the bicycle. There are many cycling quotes from both well-known celebrities and those that can turn a good phrase too.
Politicians & Activists
โNothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bikeโ
John F Kennedy
โWhen you ride a bike and you get your heart rate up and youโre out, after 30 or 40 minutes your mind tends to expand; it tends to relax.โ
George W Bush
โWhoever invented the bicycle deserves the thanks of humanityโ
Lord Charles Beresford
โToleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.โ
Helen Keller
โYour bike is discovery; your bike is freedom. It doesn’t matter where you are, when you’re on the saddle, you’re taken away.โ
Doug Donaldson
โThe bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world.โ
Susan B Anthony
โGive a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime. Teach a man to cycle and he will realise fishing is stupid and boringโ
Desmond Tutu
Musicians & Composers
โBicycles are almost as good as guitars for meeting girls.โ
Bob Weir
โAs a kid, I had a dream โ I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bikes in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.โ
John Lennon
โCycling is possibly the greatest and most pleasurable form of transport ever invented. Its like walking only with one-tenth of the effort. Ride through a city and you can understand its geography in a way that no motorist, contained by one-way signs and traffic jams, will ever be able to. You can whiz from one side to the other in minutes. You can overtake ยฃ250,000 sports cars that are going nowhere fast. You can park pretty much anywhere. It truly is one of the greatest feelings of freedom one can have in a metropolitan environment. Itโs amazing you can feel this free in a modern city.โ
Deniel Pemberton
โA bicycle is a bit like a guitar in that they are both inert objects that only come alive and flourish when put in contact with a human being. Both have the ability to concentrate the mind. Just as when you are performing, you tend to lose yourself when you are on the bike. For those precious hours that you are in the saddle, nothing else matters except the bike and the road ahead.โ
Gary Kemp
Scientists & Inventors
โLife is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep movingโ
Albert Einstein
โIf constellations had been named in the 20th century, I suppose we would see bicycles.โ
Carl Sagan
โThe bicycle is the noblest invention of mankind.โ
William Saroyan
โBicycling is a big part of the future. It has to be. Thereโs something wrong with a society that drives a car to workout in a gym.โ
Bill Nye
โA bicycle is the finest mode of transport known to man.โ
Adam Hart-Davis
Authors & Journalists
โYou always know when youโre going to arrive. If you go by car, you donโt. Apart from anything else, I prefer cycling. It puts you in a good mood, I find.โ
Alan Bennett
โThe bicycle is the most civilised conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart.โ
Iris Murdoch
โLearn to ride a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live.โ
Mark Twain
โLife is like a 10-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.โ
Charles M Schultz
โWhenever I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the human race.โ
H G Wells
โCycle tracks will abound in Utopia.โ
H G Wells
โThe bicycle saves my life every day. If you’ve ever experienced a moment of awe or freedom on a bicycle; if you’ve ever taken flight from sadness to the rhythm of two spinning wheels, or felt the resurgence of hope pedalling to the top of a hill with the dew of effort on your forehead; if you’ve ever wondered, swooping down bird-like down a long hill, if the world was standing still; if you have ever, just once, sat on a bicycle with a singing heart and felt like an ordinary human touching the gods, then we share something fundamental. We know it’s all about the bike.โ
Robert Penn
โWhen the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are takingโ
Arthur Conan Doyle
โIt is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down themโ
Ernest Hemingway
โThose who wish to control their own lives and move beyond existence as mere clients and consumers โ those people ride a bike.โ
Wolfgang Sachs
โMelancholy is incompatible with bicycling.โ
James E Starrs
โThe bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community.โ
Ann Strong
โTruly, the bicycle is the most influential piece of product design ever.โ
Hugh Pearman
โCyclists see considerably more of this beautiful world than any other class of citizens. A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir toโ
Dr K.K. Doty
โA bicycle ride around the world begins with a single pedal strokeโ
Scott Stoll
โLike dogs, bicycles are social catalysts that attract a superior category of people.โ
Chip Brown
โThe cyclist is a man half made of flesh and half of steel that only our century of science and iron could have spawned.โ
Louis Baudry de Saunier
โLike dogs, bicycles are social catalysts that attract a superior category of people.โ
Chip Brown
โCycling has encountered more enemies than any other form of exercise.โ
Louis Baudry de Saunier
โYou never have the wind with you โ either it is against you or youโre having a good day.โ
Daniel Behrman
โWhen man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments.โ
Elizabeth West
โThink of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world.โ
Grant Petersen
โBicycles may change, but cycling is timeless.โ
Zapata Espinoza
“Bicycling…is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own. There are movements on a bicycle corresponding to almost all the variations in the flight of the larger birds. Plunging free downhill is like a hawk stooping. On the level stretches you may pedal with a steady rhythm like a heron flapping; or you may, like an accipitrine hawk, alternate rapid pedalling with gliding. If you want to test the force and direction of the wind, there is no better way than to circle, banked inward, like a turkey vulture. When you have the wind against you, headway is best made by yawing or wavering, like a crow flying upwind. I have climbed a steep hill by circling or spiralling, rising each time on the upturn with the momentum of the downturn, like any soaring bird. I have shot in and out of stalled traffic like a goshawk through the woods.”
Louis Halle
Actors
โOne of the most important days of my life, was when I learned to ride a bicycle.โ
Michael Palin
โI relax by taking my bicycle apart and putting it back together again.โ
Michelle Pfeiffer
Miscellaneous bike quotes
โBicycles are the indicator species of a community, like shellfish in a bay.โ
P Martin Scott
โThe best rides are the ones where you bite off much more than you can chew, and live through itโ
Doug Bradbury
โI donโt ride a bike to add days to my life. I ride a bike to add life to my daysโ
Unknown
โYou either love spinning the pedals and watching the scenery whiz by, or you donโt. And if you love it, not much can sour you on the idea of riding your bike.โย
Keith Mills
โThere is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite so worthwhile as simply messing about on bicycles.โ
Tom Kunich
โLife may not be about your bike, but it can sure help you get through it.โ
Hallmann
โRiding a bike is the best antidepressant drug and only has good side effects.โ
Gunnar Rempel
โBicycles have no walls.โ
Paul Cornish
โA mountain bike is like your buddy. A road bike is your lover.โ
Sean Coffey
Are there any cycling quotes that you know of that haven’t been included?
Let me know your favourite cyclist quotes in the comments below!