Becoming my parents

Oh no! It's starting to happen. Not that I am fathering a child already (who to do it with has become a perennial problem). A little while ago, I was in conversation with a new colleague (NC) and we happened to talk about a former officemate (FO) of mine who incidentally was a friend of NC's boyfriend.

Me: It's really a small world.
NC: Yeah. So you know FO?
Me: Yes, he was our medical editor before. How do you know him?
NC: He and my boyfriend met each other through cycling.
Me: Oh, yeah. FO is a cycler (gasp!).

I immediately stopped on my tracks. That just didn't feel nor sound right! Jeepers! What's happening to me? And before I could say another word to redeem myself, she uttered, "Cyclist, you mean." And then she goes on to ask, "So, what exactly do you do here?"

Need I reveal that I work as an editor? For crying out loud, what's happening to my vocabulary!?! 

Word to the uninitiated: There is such as term as cycler, although cyclist is conventionally used to refer to someone who rides a bike. This is according to a very good friend of mine, who collaborated with Merriam-Webster.