I'm not a cyclist. No racing, no matching outfit or ultra-light components. No bike stand in my basement, no energy gel in a jersey back pocket. I'm a guy who just likes to bike. Through all four seasons, my bike gets me to work and back, but we make no great show of it, and break no speed records.

When my alarm goes off at 5:15am, I don't want to ride, but some reflex for masochism puts my foot on the floor before I have time to stop myself. When I see my bike clothes piled high in the corner after yesterday's promise to myself that I wouldn't ride today after yesterday's long ride home after yesterday's long day at work. I don't want to take the bike. When I step outside after a hurried breakfast, glancing constantly at the clock and adding an hour, making sure I won't be late, it is still dark as night and Minnesota-winter-cold, I really don't want to ride. When the first car nearly swipes my elbow on the snow-narrowed streets, I swear at myself for riding.

When I make my way to the bike path running through the bottom of the city on an old railway, and the only sounds I hear are my pedals creaking, my wheels plowing a thin path, the first line through the night's light snow lit only by the light on my handlebars, I remember why I love doing this. Later, after a long hot shower at work, erasing icicles that have formed on my beard and bike, I see my co-workers walk in, bleary eyed and struggling to keep their eyes open. I know that so far today, I have seen lakes and rivers frozen and reflecting the dim, rising sun. I have seen woods and what animals there are to be seen in the winter. I have worked hard up hills, sweating and swearing and puffing. The fifteen miles this morning kept me outside longer today than most people up here will be outside all week. The hot shower at the end of the ride felt better than anything else I will do all day.

After I ride home at night, a long ride after a long day at work, I will pile my clothes in the corner, feel my thighs struggle to carry me around my small house and make simple daily things, walking up stairs, changing, doing dishes, painful and exhausting. I will promise myself not to do this again tomorrow, but will set my alarm for 5:15, just in case.

Tom Radamacher is the geek in the big white helmet riding the bike with the fancy rims and the crummy old bike rack that you see in the early mornings and late afternoons. He rides, and writes, year round in Minneapolis. He started biking just to get to work, and now works to support his biking habit.