Urthwhyte

For me:

• Apparently, there is a correct way to mount a frame pump
• Checking that you have your water bottle before you're 15k into your ride is probably a good idea
• Headwinds are roughly 1E6 times more demotivating than hills
• Drop bars>Flat bars
• Check that your chosen route doesn't run into any road construction, forcing you to practice your cyclocross style flying dismounts in your road shoes
• Running prowess does not translate to cycling ability

mzeffex 

Fixie friends can't keep up on the uphills or downhills.

rollin

I am above average at cornering in the wet.

Trouble is I'm way below average between the bends.

patentcad

In bike racing, somebody will always yell at you.

vtc12ip

Pass dead Armadillo's on the upwind side.

nvrlnd7

I learned that when i ride with my wife on a cold morning DRESS WARM because there is no hammering up hills/down hill or on flat, and i froze to near death!

FlashBazbo

I learned not to take that new road again. A gauntlet of somewhere between 25 and 30 loose dogs in a two-to-three mile stretch -- and a HONKING big crater, filled with mega-sized gravel, at the bottom of a plummeting, off-camber, blind corner descent (and there isnt' any stopping or even slowing down after you see it).

subie

Narrow shoulder + steep road drop off onto gravel + huge truck whizzing by = scraping the hell out of my arms and legs

nathan84318

When your riding along and hear a firecracker in the rear you probally should stop to check it out, in my case it was a blown tire and a pinhole in the tube lol

elemental

This is the most depressing fact of all. I am always shocked when I've been running more than riding by how much slower I get on the bike.

sd790

Tighten the bolts on your new bottle cages enough that the won't come rattling loose halfway through the ride.

Yaniel

I learned that one 3 weeks ago on a group ride. Nothing like fixing it at 22 mph.. that was exciting.

Urthwhyte

Being your school's star track and field athlete (not that I'm any good), to barely keeping up with the 100kg clyde on anything over a 1% incline is humbling, to say the least

elemental

Hah then you are obviously a much better runner than I, so you can imagine how unimpressive my transition back to riding in the spring is.

Urthwhyte

I attend a school of ~650 people K-12, so it's much less impressive than it sounds.

skol

indoor training although boring and tedious really helps once you hit the roads

tmass

That the weatherman doesn't know diddly......suppose to be 70 degrees F today. Left with it 38 degrees in shorts just knowing it would warm up. It was 42 degrees 2 and half hours later and I was freezing from the ride.

hansel

dont be so quiet in a race, scraped a $400 front wheel today.. and the rider that caused it got out, and left four of us in a mangled mess.

oh and take a few min. to find your computer that landed ever so gingerly in the grass 50 feet from your bike.

coasting 

badly potholed roads have a double hazard. The loose chippings and stones surrounding the hole is hard to spot and can be spread quite far and wide around the hole.

hurley.girl

If see something unusual and alarm bells start going off in my head - it's best to pay attention.

Pedestrians, even slow moving ones, can move a lot quicker than I expect.

GP

If a van makes a u-turn and cuts you off, and you chase it down to yell at the driver, it's hard to stay angry when the driver is hot.

halfspeed

Unless you're so far off the back nobody cares.

elemental

Still, you're probably faster than I am.

I too learned this on my ride today. Beautiful weather, shining sun, I figured it would be perfect weather.Unfortunately, I chose a loop so narrow that it's essentially out-and-back in the belly of this valley we live in (since climbing was just not in the cards -- see #14), and I ended up spending the first half of my ride battling a monster headwind on a narrow, straight country highway with no protection whatsoever (and the flags confirmed my suspicion that I was 100% into the wind). The way back was nice, bit nowhere near made up for it on the misery indes.

We seem to be learning a lot of the same lessons today.

merlinextraligh

That Zipp 808's can be ridden on a tandem with 2 broken spokes on the back wheel, and hardly out of true.

dstrkt

I'm new to riding - People will try to pass you on the left even though you signal that you're going left. (can I give them the finger when they do this? I did today.)

And yes, I found that swimming and running prowess doesn't translate to cycling ability.