With a hat tip to the Accidental Hermit, who set off this train of thought with his post “You know you’ve been living off grid for a while when… We’re not yet able to live off-grid. (I’m working on that, and there are more details to come, but don’t hold your breath…) In the meantime here’s my submission on the same lines.

You know you’ve been cycling a while when…

1. You can navigate locally by bike without thinking- but you don’t know where the roads go.
2. You aren’t self-conscious about having a trouser leg in your sock, and forget about it for several hours after riding*.
3. You think it’s normal to carry three large scale maps.
4. You know the exact sequence of individual crossing signals.
5. You no longer feel the need to keep up with faster cyclists.
6. You find it interesting to look at different kinds of chain guard.
7. You try and navigate friends down bus lanes in their car.
8. You know the least hilly route to anywhere within ten kilometres.
9. You can identify friends at 500 metres, by their bike.
10. Reading the weather forecast becomes an interesting part of the morning routine.
11. You aren’t bothered that the bike weighs 40 kilograms.
12. You avoid potholes by memory, several months after they’ve been filled in.
13. You don’t think twice about planning routes with Google earth, because you can look at the altitude.
14. You automatically walk outside of the ‘door zone’. On your neighbours driveway.
15. After an appointment you have a panicky moment when you find the bike rack empty, then remember you came by tram.
16. When you’ve lost something you automatically look in your bike bags.
17. When you look in your bags you realise you’ve been carrying two locks, fifteen spare batteries, two pairs of gloves and three kilos of chocolate on your bike for a week.
18. You then forget to take all this stuff out of your bags.
19. You have no idea where the nearest petrol/gas station is, or how much they currently charge per litre.
20. You don’t see ‘cyclists dismount’ signs.

What would you add to the list?

*Maybe that’s just me.

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