You know you're becoming a cyclist when...

Are You Addicted To Cycling? Check Off All Which Apply To You (bonus points for speed, deductions for drafting)

Via MetalCowboy

• You know every traffic light sequence in the tri-county area for stop free pedaling.
• Either it’s a Brooks saddle or I will stand and pedal the whole way, thank you.
• You wear more tights than a children’s theater group performing Peter Pan.
• You have eaten pasta directly out of your front bag, while pedaling.
• You have more up-to-date knowledge of bike specs, gear and camping equipment than the staff at your local shop, the reps in your community and the editors at national magazines.
• You have a killer set of bodybuilder quads and a pair of angel hair pasta thin arms. That ten year old boy called again. He wants his biceps back.
• You don’t hate drivers as much as pity them in their steel cages, surrounded my shock jock rhetoric and their vague anger over how it came to this.
• You think about each hill as a cyclist, even when you are driving in a car.
• You calculate distances between cities by how long it would take you by bike. ( 21 bike days from St. Petersburg to St. Louis)
• You know how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
• You don’t find it over sharing to tell people you just met how many miles you rode last night, last week, last year.
• You have a Biker’s Tan. (bottom 2 /3 of your legs, lower 1/2 your arms, and two little circles on the tops of your hands)
• You get sad when your Biker’s Tan fades.
• You have nothing good to say about logging trucks or RVs with living fossils behind the wheel, or anything sporting wide mirrors.
• You have lost feeling in your hands, neck and groin for substantial periods of time, but still you consider it the fair price of doing business on two wheels.
• You have far too many photos of yourself on or around your bicycle next to signs at the top of mountain passes, Welcome To So and So State, National Park entrances, starting lines of bike rides, historic sites, and in front of bicycle shops.
• You’ve lost sleep over the trailer vs pannier debate - of course you own both.
• You can’t bring yourself to recycle any magazine remotely related to cycling. (Bicycling, Adventure Cyclist, Dirt Rag Bike, even that issue of GQ where Al Gore was on a bike)
• You’ve given your bike a nickname.
• You’ve used that nickname out loud -- in mixed company -- and felt no shame or embarrassment. Some of us aren’t so brave.
• You lift your butt off the car seat as you go over potholes, railroad tracks and speed bumps.
• You turn the air vents of your car to blow directly into your face and imagine you are on a bike ride.
• You own a pile of lightweight stuff that has multiple uses, and you’ve tested all of them in real life situations.
• You have enough funny/scary animals chasing me stories to close a bar of rowdy Irishmen or outlast a windbag uncle at the family reunion. (note: No windbag uncle? Hmm, could be you)
• You’ve slept in a church, playground, cemetery, farm pasture, yurt and jail voluntarily?) beside your bicycle.
• You know the other definition of Critical Mass.
• You are an expert at spotting thunderstorms, tornados, windstorms, marauding cattle and ice cream stands from a distance.
• You have been caught in a thunderstorm while still in the saddle blinking away water and grinning all the way home.
• You check your helmet mirror for what’s behind you even when you are off the bike and not wearing it.
• You hate headwinds, hills and trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent.
• You secretly love headwinds and hills, but those trucks parked on the shoulder of any descent are still the work of an angry god.
• You forget, much like a woman after childbirth, all the pain, headwinds humidity and hills within days of a long ride, and start dreaming about the next.
• You have coachroached: bonking so badly that you have to lie on your back, pull your arms and legs tight and spasm your legs into the air to relive the cramps. Take a picture of that sometime.
• You can say "My bicycle has been stolen!" in six different languages.
• Your bike is more expensive than your car. (if you even own one)
• You never ask anyone in a car if the road you are on has "hills" or "climbs".
• You wave to drivers with bike racks.
• You have convinced yourself and others that protein bars are tasty. Here, try the coffee, banana, peanut butter Sundae ones, they’re the best.
• You have tested your hypothermic limits and found that they can be expanded with pedal speed, layering and hot cocoa.
• You agree with the statement; "If everything feels in control, you just aren’t going fast enough."