What is a cyclist?

[400bhp]

As per the title.

When do you become a cyclist, rather than someone who owns a bike?

A "just for fun" debate when do we ever have one of those on here

 

[vickster]

When you buy your first helmet, jump a red light deliberately and have a clipless moment

 

[Smokin Joe]

When you are on a bike you are a cyclist, when you are not you're not.

Any other definition is pure snobbery.

 

[TobyM]

When you are on a bike you are a cyclist, when you are not you're not.

Any other definition is pure snobbery.

+1

 

[400bhp]

Why snobbery?

Ignorance on the part of the person naming yourself as a cyclists perhaps.

I wasn't clear in my OP to be honest, I was thinking more of other people brandishing you with the cyclist title.

 

[twobiker]

I think you become a cyclist when you crash,and during recovery still want to just go for a bike ride,lesser mortals say sod that and flog the bike asap.

 

[gaz]

Cy-clist
noun
a person who rides or travels by bicycle

 

[HLaB]

When you are on a bike you are a cyclist, when you are not you're not.

Any other definition is pure snobbery.

I once worked with a guy who got a bike through C2W, cycled every day and in all weathers; he always insisted he wasn't a cyclist

 

[youngoldbloke]

I'm sure I have read this thread before? Recently?

 

[Sheffield_Tiger]

A "Proper Cyclist": From yesterday's ride to work

• Is it the "mere pob" squeaking along on a "BSO" with cranks creaking away and an occasional wobble as the rear wheel with bent spindle and missing bearings starts to clunk from side to side
• Is it me? Slogging to work with a trailer full of parcels on the back, but still overtaking some other "mere pobs" and trying to keep up with:-
• ..the poser roadie wearing the gear as if he's in the TDF but not moving as fast as he likes to look like he can (though who knows, he could hardly be breaking a sweat and could maybe average 28 over 100 miles on a sunday)

I put it to you that all these are forms of cyclist but the REAL cyclist in my book had to be

• The middle aged woman in long summer dress on a 'sit up and beg' looking for all the world like Celia Stewart (for those sad enough to remember Home and Away in the early 90s) who breezed effortlessly along the road as fast as all the others that were either grinding away or spinning manically, with a relaxed cadence of about 30/min (and not a battery pack in sight)

 

[Paulus]

I would say a cyclist is someone who's chosen mode of transport is a bike.

 

[Red Light]

I'm sure I have read this thread before? Recently?

Probably just as there are supposedly only 7 basic story lines in literature, there's probably only seven basic topics in Cycle Chat. So we are all condemned here to our collective Sisyphean task.

 

[Jezston]

I would refer to someone as a cyclist only if that's the most fitting adjective at that moment.

Otherwise I would refer to them in more descriptive terms such as "the girl in the red shirt" or "that idiot" or "Steve" or somesuch.

 

[007fair]

I would say a cyclist is someone who's chosen mode of transport is a bike.

+1

 

[cyco2]

I like to think of riders as being Cyclists and Bicyclists.

I Cyclist would be able to break the speed limit, what ever that is, on a designated pavement. Where as a Bicyclist wouldn't.

A Cyclist would be able to do a track stand at traffic lights and junctions, a Bicyclist wouldn't.

A Cyclist would carry the means to repair a puncture, a Bicyclist wouldn't.

A Cyclist would knock the wing mirror off a car overlapping the cycle lane, a Bicyclist wouldn't.

Etc.

Etc.