10. Pork. Lots of pork: bacon, pork chops, pork roast, salami, kielbasa, sausage, all of it. Everywhere and in everything except the– No, wait, it’s in that too.
9. Who doesn’t love heat exhaustion?
8. That moment when the guy in front of you hits a rock or a grate and you manage to swerve in time to avoid causing a disaster. He recovers and you high-five each other for cheating General Grievous Bodily Harm of fresh victims.
7. Nobody thinks you’re weird for wearing padded spandex. You can sleep in it and no one cares. It’s equally cool to hang it on a clothesline, chamois side out.
6. Butt/Chamois butt’r is totally cool and reasonably priced in single-use packets.
5. You haven’t lived until you’ve had to use a well-subscribed kybo in sunny 100 degree heat. It’s out of hand sanitizer, of course, and there’s no hand washing station within a mile.
4. Pie for breakfast! Pie for lunch! Pie for dinner! No pie for snack. Have a root beer float or a Mr. Porkchop pork chop instead.
3. You can hear Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar On Me in every single town.**
2. No matter where you go, there are at least a hundred bikes nicer than yours lying around.
1. Nothing prepares you for a hard day of bicycling like a luxurious lightweight tent on rocky ground with a plastic pole that snaps in the middle of the night because of a howling thunderstorm you can’t sleep through. And your bike is out in that.