Don't Encourage Them

As I have stated before, I have no problem with people who get their exercise by riding a bike down the side of the street, provided that they stay off to the side. After all, biking is great exercise. But it is when they decided that they have an equal right to the road as a person in a car that we start to have an issue, because I don't care how fast you may think you are pedaling, you aren't going to be able to reach the pace set by my V8 engine. Once I have to slow down because some bicyclist thinks they are capable of pedaling at 35 mph, then I begin to get annoyed. You get out of my way, I'll stay out of the bike lane and we'll get along just fine. [Sidebar: I do have a note for the people who feel the need to bike to work - you reek. I appreciate that you may want to save gas, but find a place to shower after you arrive or start taking the bus.] Still, I'd rather you ride an actual bike than the thing I'm about to talk about.

For the past couple of weeks I have been repeatedly seeing a commercial for a new, hardcore exercise bike. It is the official training bike of the Tour de France and is powered by Google Maps. What this bikes does is allow you to virtually bike the stages of the Tour. As you are going along the bike will tilt up or down and the resistance of the pedals will change based on the actual roads in France, which you can watch roll by on a screen thanks to Google Street View. It is the closest you can get to really being there. (Quick note: the bike costs $1,500. You could actually go to France for that price.) At first glance this seems like a really good idea. Incorporating video games and exercise is the wave of the future and might be the thing that finally stems the childhood obesity problem. Plus, people are competitive by nature. The gym I used to belong to had a virtual rowing machine where you raced a computer and that machine always had a line, even if there were other open rowing machines. So, giving people a chance to post times and compare them to the professionals is just going to spur them to do better and better. But, when you stop and take a closer look at the commercial it stops being innovative and starts getting a little sad.

First off, everyone in the commercial is wearing one of those official Tour de France-style biking shirts (of course, they are yellow). Now, I already make fun of people who wear those on the road, do you really think it is necessary to wear one when biking in your home? I ride a stationary bike every morning and I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those things. And, just in case you think it was a set-up for the commercial, they brought one of these bikes to a stage of the Tour to have fans try it out and all of them were wearing one of these too-tight bike shirts. I'm sorry, is it really very important to be aerodynamic when watching people ride bikes? I know fans wear football jerseys to watch Patriots' games, but this would be more like showing up to Gillette in full pads. At some point you just have to back off the fandom.

Look, I get it: exercising is more fun when you have something to train for, even if that something is a race that isn't taking place anywhere but your mind. Plus, biking is a really easy thing that everyone thinks they could be excellent at if they just dedicated themselves to it. But, jees, you don't have to actually dress like it is about to happen. When I break out my little practice surface to work on my putts in my bedroom in my mind I may be mentally lining up a putt to win the Masters, but you still won't see me putting on my spikes. It makes me worry that these bicyclists are the same people who dressed up to play D&D in high school and are really thankful to finally have another outlet for their costume desires as an adult. If that is the case I plan to start giving them all extra room as we travel down the street together, because for all I know they are carrying some broadsword they bought at ComicCon on the frame. Then again, swords might actually get me to watch the Tour de France this year.