I did not choose the bike. The bike chose me.

Standing on the side of a cyclocross race just two years ago, I felt the
initial pull of a vortex that would prove too strong to resist.  Within
a month, I’d been sucked into the black hole of cycling monomania.

What I found was a wonderful world of exploration, transcendence, agony,
and mind-boggling fun. Since then I have vowed to use my storytelling
superpowers to lure others into this all-consuming way of life.  A life
on wheels, down trails, up mountain passes, through neighborhoods and,
sometimes, straight over the handlebars.

The Cycling Diaries document my various two-wheeled adventures; from
muddy cyclocross courses, to man-eating gravel pits, leg-crushing road
races, mountain biking exploits, and epic long-distance journeys.

-Heidi Swift

More about Heidi

Heidi Swift is a freelance writer and photographer, rabid bike racer, expert whiskey drinker and well-intentioned troublemaker. Born to a feisty newspaper reporter, she spent her youth chasing ambulances, sleeping under chairs at political events, and vowing never to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Unfortunately, she could not escape her fate and now writes a twice-monthly cycling column for the Oregonian, where she documents her two-wheeled adventures for the reading public.

Heidi spends ten months out of the year thinking about her first true love, cyclocross, and the other two months actually racing it. To kill time in the off-season she dabbles in ultra-long-distance cycling (randonneuring), mountain biking, and road racing.

Her work has appeared in Cyclocross Magazine, Bicycling Magazine and VeloNews and she spends way too much time writing her blog, The Everyday Athlete.