De weg slingert zich voor je omhoog. Je begint aan de klim en krijgt al snel het ritme te pakken. Dit is het gevoel waar je naar op zoek bent. Het klinkt misschien een beetje raar, maar terwijl je de berg aan het bedwingen bent, je benen pijn doen en je longen branden, heb jij je nog nooit meer thuis gevoeld dan nu.Kuilen, kapotgereden asfalt of schots-en-scheve betonplaten - we hebben onze Ruby zo ontworpen dat ze zich hier niets van aantrekt. We willen je graag vertellen hoe we dat hebben gedaan, maar eerst willen we laten zien hoe deze rijeigenschappen zich vertalen in dat onvergetelijke 'Oost West, Thuis Best'-gevoel.

De groep zoeft over de verlaten landweg. Gelach en geklets doorbreken de stilte. De sfeer is ontspannen terwijl jullie met 25 kilometer per uur door het landschap suizen. In de verte doemt het klimmetje al op. Het wordt langzaam maar zeker stiller in de groep.

You walk out, the sound of your cleats on the concrete floor of the driveway. It’s early, and the click of your shoe into the pedal snaps out into the morning air. You’re stressed about something you can’t quite put your finger on, and it’s been eating away at you all night—it kept you awake, actually. You begin to ride. It takes about 10 minutes for the thought niggle to detach itself from your brain. Unmoored, it drifts from your mind entirely. This is what you needed today—to find solace in the motion. The thoughts fly away with every pedal stroke and turn of the crank. This is not how you ride every day, but there are days when this is 100% the only way you want to ride. This is where you decompress and let it all go. We all seek to be Home Alone occasionally, and we’ll fiercely protect that sacred “me” time just as fiercely as Macaulay Culkin did in the movie.

When you start the day, your only plan is to find some new roads and see where they go. You manage to rope some familiar characters into the adventure, promising nothing more than good company and a few back roads to satiate the wanderlust. Your friends take the bait, tuned to your “let’s get lost” frequency. As you roll toward the part of the route where you’re not sure what the road is going to be like, a sense of giddy anticipation ripples through the group. Later, you round a bend and come to a breathless halt as the landscape opens itself up to you. The plan was loose to begin with, and you’re probably a little off course right now but it doesn’t matter. As you look out across the rolling hills and toward distant horizons you feel the soft wind on your face, familiar and loving. In a hashtag world, photos of this big-sky abode would be peppered with all the #blessed and #outsideisfree tags as can be typed in a roadside minute, but the only word in your head right now is “yes.” Bonus: You’ve seen three cars in the last two hours.

People think you’re weird. Who likes to climb? Ugh, horrible. But for you, there’s something about finding places on the maps that squiggle up and seeking them out. As you begin the climb—three miles is your sweet spot—you click down gears and find the perfect rhythm. Your technique is one you’ve developed over the years, by virtue of continually putting yourself through years of self-inflicted climb school. Mostly, you’re seated, tapping out a regular beat that gets you up with a regimented efficiency. But sometimes the grade is aggressive and you have to match it, so you stand. This is your favorite kind of move, even though you know it saps your energy faster. But there’s a raw, off-the-leash power to it as you rise from your saddle and begin to dance your bike up the climb. Your mind drifts—it’s just you and the action of getting to the top. Focus. Commitment. Some people hate to climb and bitch about it—which you sometimes do too—but as you crest the summit and conquer the day it is as though you have once again defeated that part of you that says “not possible.” And there’s always the down.

Learn about Ruby and Roubaix

Future Shock technology.