Are cyclists crazy?
Arriving home from another excellent Saturday ride, I started to ponder. It was cold and wet. Windy and gray. I could have stayed home in the warm house watching the rotten weather descend but instead, found myself riding West of Hillsboro eating road dirt from the rider in front, dodging rain, wind gusts and sausage-crazed Verboortians. Why did I ride in the rain today? Why the insanity?
After much rumination, I came up with a list of all the things over the years that cycling has meant to me/done to me in greater or lesser proportions that have caused it to become a PASSION. Perhaps you recognize some or have others of your own that by themselves or in combination with others affect you the same way. They are in no particular order except how they popped into my (empty) head:
Freedom
Nothing equals the feeling of freedom you can get a hold of from heading out on the road, down a gnarly slope or tearing up on a long, flat piece of highway. Just you and the bike whirring along surrounded by big open spaces and big sky… Epic climbs to scenic vistas to make you feel on top of the world… Screaming wide-eye descents on curvy roads unfettered by cars following behind you, grinning ear to ear! Very motorcycle-like, but that is another story.
Aliveness
Riding headfirst into a sleet storm, receiving a face-full of mud on an MTB ride, crashing into the bushes, baking in the scorching heat ascending a long climb, pegging your max. heart rate during a sprint, conquering the local hill and any cycling experience really is guaranteed to make you feel alive and get all those synapses firing.
Fitness
We ride to feel fit. We ride to lose weight. We ride to relieve stress. We ride to become more efficient oxygen powered machines. We ride to see our muscles get toned and taut. We ride blow out the cobwebs and think more clearly.
We are "low riders". We ride to lower our: heart rate, waist size, body weight, body fat, stress, wallet thickness, route times and rate at which we age. We ride to see what our bodies and minds working together can actually produce in a performance.
Adventure
Exploring a new area on a bike is just the best way to do it. No question. You can see more new things faster on a bike than via walking, running or by car.
Bicycling has let me discover and explore hundreds of roads, towns, areas, parks and crannies I otherwise would have never seen. Every ride is a new ride, full of promise for some sort of new outing. Armed with a good map, all you have to do is pick a destination and go. Getting lost is not necessarily a bad thing as you end up places you never thought you would.
Self-Discovery
Every day, all over the world, some cyclist, somewhere rides further than they ever thought they would, rides faster than they ever thought they might, participates in a race or event they never thought they would enter, loses that stubborn weight they never thought would come off or takes up a new cycling discipline only to add another dimension to their life. The possibilities for discovery and growth are always available and endless.
Inspiration
There are so many cyclists that show you what is possible it is hard not be inspired. Not just Lance, but everyday folk doing extraordinary things and making cycling work for them.
Hardcore senior citizens mixing it up at races, long-distance events and Ironman Triathlons. Single Mom’s with full-time jobs putting in hundreds of miles per week. Folks with missing legs biking trails that regular mountain bikers find difficult. Newcomers to cycling taking the sport and going with it, reaching top levels in a few short years.
Camaraderie
Suffering, like fun, is a funny thing. You can suffer, hurt, be in pain, be miserable, tired and frozen out there by yourself and think "This S##KS!" "This is S#IT!". But, take the same ingredients, stir in some fellow cyclists who are also experiencing the same wretchedness and Viola! You are now having FUN! Quite the interesting transformation, I always thought. Suffering and peak experiences are the perfect incubator for "War Stories" being told around the campfire (or restaurant table).
Sure, camaraderie happens on sunny, warm and pain-free rides, but what fun is that?
Fun
It all comes down to fun.
Fun is funny stuff. Everyone knows what it is and everyone knows what it is not, but we cannot define it. We all instinctively and collectively know things that are not fun, things we don’t want to happen again. Like waiting in line at the DMV, having your car conk-out on a busy highway during a storm, having the toilet backup onto your new carpeting, ending up in the hospital and more.
And we know things that are always fun which keeps us doing them time after time and form our bicycle life. The ones that affect me are listed above. You?