"Get a bike. You will not regret it. If you live."

Cycling is a masochistic hobby based on the love of suffering: leg-breaking distances, lung bursting climbs, uncomfortable narrow saddles, searing heat, soggy rain and cold, the constant fear of getting dropped from the pack, and finally crashing.

Greg LeMond became the first American to win the Tour de France in 1986 despite having no support from his team and co-leader, Bernard Hinault, whom Greg paced all the way to victory the previous year. I was a young impressionable teenager and was hooked.

A bad crash resulting in a mangled bike and myself under a parked truck led to a cycling hiatus for several years until the mountainbiking craze started leading to more crashes. A move to Texas in 1992 re-kindled the road cycling fire and led to some amateur racing due to the influence of my sister and the tutelage of ex-coworker and friend, Gary Green. Gary and I sat in adjacent cubicles and spent many mornings wasting time reading live updates of Tour de France action and many weekends getting dropped in the Texas heat, and of course crashing often.