Quote Originally Posted by Sky King View Post
The whole race thing is always funny. If you tell someone you ski, they don't automatically assume you ski race, but I find when I tell someone I enjoy biking they seem to assume I enjoy racing - two different things in my mind. My current favorite ball cap is from Surly and it says "Racing Sucks". Owning a bike store, I am constantly explaining to people that our store is not race bike oriented. I have moved beyond the need to defend so often times I will just smile, nod my head and walk away.
I think that in the minds of many people, road bike or drop bars=race bike. When I worked at a bike shop, I often came across people who, after talking to them about what kind of riding they wanted to do, would probably benefit from a road or CX bike (when we started stocking them), but when I'd walk them over to the road/CX section, would go "Oh no! I don't want a racing bike!" I suppose that was sort of the fault of The Powers that Be who put all the bikes with drop bars in the same set of racks.