People often ask me what the fixation is with putting on some stretchy pants, mounting a bicycling with the skinniest of tires (roadie), locking oneself to the pedals and then proceeding to seemingly suffer for hours as you drag what feels like a sizeable bodily mass up a mountainside. It is an excellent question with many answers and perspectives, and I plan to explore it through my various posts.
For me, cycling brings a sense of clarity. Let's look at it from a different perspective (there is that word again). Let's look at the world of mediation. When you are trying to meditate, whatever version it may be, whether it be clearing your mind or entering a 'flow' state, the end goal is to quieten the mind or at least pay the conscious mindless attention. Cycling, too, has some reflective properties.
“must get good air in, must get bad air out oh and pedal — for goodness sake man don’t forget to pedal“!
Just as in meditation, your breathing while on the bike is crucial. You are breathing in, flooding your body with as much oxygen as possible, imagining that clean oxygenated blood flowing to your legs and latching on and removing that ever-increasing lactic acid build-up. Keeping as relaxed as possible on the bike is essential. Relaxed arms, relaxed jaw, smoooooth pedalling, metronomic like an engine piston up-down up-down-up-down. Tension is the enemy when cycling; such a waste of precious energy. As you sit there pedalling along, your heart rate elevated, a slight burning sensation in your legs and chest, you will start to feel something quite remarkable. In that state of dis-comfort, you will begin to notice, or perhaps it's better to say you won't notice how your mind is drawn away from its daily distractions — no matter how big or small. In this state all your mind seems capable of is "must get good air in, must get bad air out oh and pedal — for goodness sake man don't forget to pedal!"
Moments like these make you realise how much our conscious mind causes clutter and discomfort in our everyday lives. Everything you were worried about before you got on the bike has disappeared. All those things that seemed like a big issue suddenly seem inconsequential. Why? Like many things in our lives, we have created them in our minds. None (or at least the vast majority of them) are accurate. Does it matter what that guy shouted to you at the red light or that someone bumped the back of your car? Is it worth the waste of energy to get all worked up? Choose to be constructive, work the problem step by step and FLOW.
So to answer that first question, why ride? When you are on a bike, energy is precious, and mental capacity is precious. If I sit there and worry about all these external issues, what will happen? Simple, you are going to forget to breathe, you are going to forget to stay relaxed, you forget to pedal and you will come to a grinding halt. Lucky for you, though when you ride a bike those choices are made for you; it's that slight 'forcefulness' that I find crucial. I can get on my bike in the most hostile state of mind, but within 15 minutes, all those beautiful metrics start clicking into place and clarity starts to douse that over-worked mind. As you ride along that quiet road no other sound but your rhythmic breathing to keep you company, you will start to sense this calm as it begins to settle over you. Suddenly those issues you started your ride with don't seem so severe, those problems so insurmountable.
So just as on a bike, so it is in life. If you let all these small things that almost certainly don't matter clog up your mind they will affect your breathing, stop you from pedalling and you will "fall off your bike".
Luckily though just as in riding a bike, in life, if you fall off you can dust yourself off, get back on and continue to ride.