Cycling is a frustrating sport for so many reasons:

1. The equipment is expensive and fragile. Wheels go out of true, computers break, chains wear out and replacing it all when it’s broken costs a large amount of money. Cycling in America is a rich person’s sport, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

2. Being fast enough to be competitive takes a huge amount of time and dedication, or barring a surfeit of time, painful, structured intervals. Regularly riding 20 hours a week or doing intervals up and down the bike path at 6 a.m. isn’t the most sublime of cycling experiences.

3. From January to November (or March to December if you’re a ‘crosser), our loved ones and non-cycling friends take a backseat to the demands of the bike. Our early morning or evening training sessions, rooms piled high with frames and wheels, dripping lycra hanging from the showerhead, and weekends spent driving 600 miles roundtrip in pursuit of nothing more than bragging rights take a toll.

4. Traveling with bike is a hassle. A duffle full of clothing and spares, a greasy, bulky machine. The runner with his shoes and shorts doesn’t realize how good he has it.

And so on and on.

But the satisfaction and reward of looking back after a hard, long pull into the wind and seeing your riding partners sitting up, shattered, or outsprinting the rest of your breakaway group for the finish, or carving a perfect descent make up for all the annoyances, the horn honks, the angry boyfriends and girlfriends, and depleted bank accounts.

Because no matter how much we tell ourselves and each other how much we hate this sport, more often than not, we crave the moment we roll out the door for the ride.