–Cyclists, please never complain about the UCI coming to test you. Yes, it sucks ass and is de-humanizing. Yes, it’s often extraordinarily inconvenient. Yes, it’s typically extremely early in the morning. But complaining that “The evil vampires are here again to suck my blood” is hackneyed and no longer funny. They’re simply doing their job, similarly you are doing your job by participating. Just do it and get on with your day (or in all likelihood, it’s now 6:45am when you finish with them, so go back to sleep).

Thanks for responding, one, and two, for being honest and thoughtful with it. When I was thinking about the greater cultural significance of Twitter (yes, I think big thoughts about frighteningly unimportant topics…what else does grad school teach you?), I didn’t put it in a “personal” context. It’s the only medium, that I know of at least, that can really give voice to the polaroid moments in life; funny, happy, boring (only in the eye of the beholder, I guess?) and ridiculous, however lame that may sound. I’ve always believed that the little things matter, whether in relationships or just out and about in daily life. For someone, such as yourself, who spends long periods of time away from loved ones, Twitter really can be a way to feel connected and a part of the dailyness of home (and vice versa). Let those heartstrings be pulled, tied into a bow, left hanging, or whatever…tis a part of that dastardly thing called being human.

I guess Twitter, as with most things in life, is all about intention and perspective. Wow, this response got a lot schmotlzier than I expected.

So, in the G.T.D. (Great Twitter Debate), you may have swayed me…those squirrely little buggers (ie: middle school students I’m learning how to teach) are quite hilarious and I do enjoy sharing the baking love, so as Wayne and/or Garth would say: Party on!
(I may just need a beginner course in being [was going to insert wicked, but am still learning how to use the word properly and as I am not from New England, probably shouldn't quote it to a native] awesome at Twitter…tips are heartily encouraged)

P.S. IANTK photo to follow

I enjoyed you Twitter Rules for Cyclists and would like you and your fellow cyclists to realize how important your tweets related to your job successes (training/races) are to us cycling news deprived followers in the good ol’ US of A. We do our best with Velo News and Versus, but getting just the highlights just doesn’t cut it. Twitter puts us on the sidelines of the “cycling game.”

I enjoy your blogs and look forward to all the wisdom that comes from he who is Ted King. By the way, my best Christmas present this year was the I.A.N.T.D. shirt! My picture is forthcoming.

My the wind be alway at your back and you wheels under you.

Sincerely,

Not Ted King

If you do mess up and catch it within 30 seconds or so, there is a good chance nobody will ever read it.

You can even delete tweets from 3 years ago.

Is a correction in order here?

Great question. I don’t know what direction my answer will ultimately lead, but let’s get the creative juices flowing as my fingers type and see where we go.

To be short and sweet, I think the more people on Twitter, the better. I continually ask friends, family, and basically just random people who I meet if they’re on Twitter and more often than not they say no for the same reason that you just said – namely, they don’t find their day-to-day business interesting.

Sure racing a bike around the globe is relatively unique and therefore at least mildly interesting, but sometimes I often don’t care about what my cycling colleagues are doing. Moreover, I want to know what my family is doing, what my friends are cooking for dinner, and what sort of witty retort Joe Random dished out at Starbucks this morning.

Yes, I said in the above post that if your post is boring, then don’t post it. But that was my rule for cyclist! And by boring, I really don’t care if you “Just had a sweet ride for 5 hours and 11,000 feet of climbing. Wicked epic!” I do, however, care what sort of normalcy occurs with my family and friends back home. It pulls at my heart strings (whatever the F that means), but I want to know what I’m missing. This sport is a lot about sacrifice and missing the weddings, dinners, parties, and so forth are worth hearing about.

On another note, if you’re tweeting and everything you say is boring and you notice the number of followers falling instead of growing, it’s a good indication that you should change the genre or tone of your tweets. Unless you don’t want to have followers, but that brings up another point entirely – what’s the point of Twitter…

Peace out Ashley,

iamTedKing and you’re not

p.s. On that note, I’m psyched you got an iantk shirt. That’s #superepic.