“How many miles do I need to ride?”
-Ride until your shorts start to wear out. Ride until you’re hungry all the time, and your smooth and tanned quadriceps start drawing serious looks, and you have tall-sock tan lines. Ride until you can do just about anything on your bike without looking down or stopping your legs. Ride until every bottle you own has tooth marks around the valve. Until your fingers are stained permanently with chain grease and brake residue. Until you start finding the torn-off tabs from energy gels all over the place. Until it hurts to sit on bare wood because you’ve burned all the fat from your ass. Until your heartbeat literally shakes the bed 40 times a minute while you’re trying to fall asleep. Until people start asking just where the hell do you go for hours at a time, and you respond—seated at your desk, struggling with a neoprene shoe cover—“Been out riding, bro.”
And after that? Take an afternoon off. Then go ride your bike.
