Thornyone wrote:I have tried a few rides with friends but prefer to cycle alone for most of the reasons that the OP quoted. I keep fitter than I did when cycling with friends, because I don’t indulge in cake stops or pub lunches en route. And a definite advantage to lone cycling is being able to lift off the saddle to break wind without offending anyone
And being able to say “moo” to a herd of cows without anyone giving me an odd look
Whilst a pub visit during a cycle ride is definitely for those desiring unfitness, the cake-stop does actually make you fitter. "Fitter for what" you enquire? For the eating of more cake and also pies! These are essential skills in a modern cycling chap or even a chapess, as cakes & pies need selling otherwise no café at all and we might all die of bonk or have to eat that dead hedgehog halfway up Buttertubs.
Now, concerning these lift-offs from the saddle ....
First we must enquire as to the source of the uplifting jets. If there is no cake, what is consumed instead to generate the oomph? Hopefully we are not talking gels, bars or other litter-generating junkfud!? Is it the bean, each one a nodule of future-gas?
As to the rearward members of the club who might be presented with a saddle-lifter - well, they should be doing their turn on the front, eh? Mind, those I know seem oblivious to such blasts, except as a source of amusement should the lift be accompanied by an amusing noise, a la Le Petomane.
Snot rockets are also met with no more than a shrug of acceptance. No one will stop to pull out their lace hanky, after all.
Talking to the beasts of the field is quite normal where I live. It's known as "chatting up".
Cugel, in the Cold Dark North, where cyclists are rude and sheep are wary.
PS I admit to personally favouring the Jersey, especially over the Chillinham, as the latter are rather touchy and lack the big eyelashes.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes