beanzontoast
Guru
- Location
- South of The Peaks
Last year, I managed to completely lose my enthusiasm for cycling. I never envisaged such a thing could occur, because up to then I had been a 4-bike-owning, 10-journey-a week-commuting cyclist plus regular weekend rider. How did it happen?
First off, I got soft about commuting by bike.
I was a year-round, all-weather bike commuter for over a decade. There was a kind of pride to it. I might not be any kind of an athlete or sports person, but what the heck - I biked to and from work every day, didn't I?! I got knocked off but I mended and came back to my bike. Time spent cleaning and otherwise working on the bikes was time I spent gladly. Ditto money: if something could be purchased to enhance my cycling (assuming I could fund it) I bought it. If there was something to be tweaked, I was happy to tweak it.
And then my daughter's job changed and she got her own car for going to work in the city. I also worked in the city. Simple logic then. Who needed the hassle of commuting by bike? Suddenly, I could get a lift into the city centre with her each morning, have time for a leisurely coffee in a cafe, then take the short walk to my own place of work. Novelty became the norm. Coming home at the end of the work day, I could either wait for her to finish and get a lift back, walk the six miles home (which I did maybe once a fortnight), get a lift from Mrs Beanz on days when she had been shopping during the afternoon or catch a bus. The advantages of it all seduced me. Now, I stayed largely dry while commuting, got extra father-daughter chatting time every day and arrived home with no bike or bike kit to sort out. I felt quite smug and boasted to people about how perfect the arrangement was. Ok I was no longer a commuting cyclist - but I was still a cyclist. I was at pains to point that out to whoever asked if I had 'given up'. I had done no such thing. I mean, I had my CTC membership didn't I? And my local cycle group membership and there were still my weekend cycle rides into the countryside for exercise of course...
Secondly, I foolishly made that leisure cycling into a chore.
It started when I had a couple of p***tures while out on those longer weekend exploring rides. As I sat fixing them, I realised that instead of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a problem, there was a perfectly good hilly route around the suburb of the city where I lived. I could easily get in 10 miles in, say, an hour and never get more than a mile from home. If it rained, I could be home in 5-10 mins. I tried it out and it worked perfectly. I got to know the route very well and completed it dozens and dozens and dozens of times. It never varied: the scenery was the same, the people were the same. It was as though the bike knew the way and I was just providing the motive power. I congratulated myself that I was getting effective exercise with minimal intellectual effort. At the same time I also felt that - as I wasn't commuting by bike any more - I really needed to get out there every weekend without fail. And so it was that that urban circuit became my self-imposed, compulsory gym. All at once, getting the bike out one cold, grey Saturday morning, having had to talk myself into sliding out of a cosy bed and into my bike kit, I realised it wasn't fun any more.
The next weekend, I found other things to keep me busy. The weekend after, I used the inclement-looking weather as an excuse. (The weather! Me, the hardened road-warrior who used to take the 'Smoke me a kipper - I'll be back for breakfast' approach to every time of day and weather condition known to man and dog excepting the nastiest of sheet ice. Me, with just about every bit of foul weather bike gear in creation lying about unused!).
Then, unexpectedly, I finished work. It was my choice, planned over a matter of three months: a little earlier than originally expected in The Big Plan of My Life, but nearing 60 I felt ok about it. There had been health things affecting others close to me and bereavement in the immediate family during the year before that had given me pause for reflection. I was at ease with my decision about retiring.
Strangely, given I wasn't commuting any more and could cycle for leisure all I wanted, I did no such thing. The brakes were off and yet, ironically, the wheels were not going around. I stopped cycling.
Six months went by. Fast-forward to this summer...
I hadn't been inside the bike shed for a month. (I'd even managed to give it a coat of exterior weatherproofing without once feeling the need to peek inside. I knew full well what awaited me: bikes sitting dormant under their dust sheets. Bikes that needed tyres checking, a wipe over etc. - the usual weekly stuff that I had somehow not bothered doing for what seemed a very long time. Bikes that needed riding. Bikes that were a reminder that I was turning into - assuming I wasn't one already - an ex-cyclist).
Then, out of the blue one morning in early July, daughter and wife both asked to go for a bikeride. We hadn't done this together in an age. I only had a couple of hours notice and their bikes were in even worse state than mine. It had always fallen to me - the 'expert' - to set their bikes up, maintain them and generally keep them fettled. Recently, that had taken a back seat too. (I could add ex-mechanic to my resume, it seemed). Cue the father/husband figure engaging in some hectic frame cleaning, frantic pumping-up of tyres, checking of brakes and adjusting of saddles while the wife/daughter combo sorted and adjusted helmets, retrieved bike gloves and bike glasses and decided on a route. Nothing exotic, just an amble along a cycle track (a disused railway now maintained by Sustrans) for an hour in one direction and the same again back homewards.
In that one hour, my enthusiasm came right back. It was like being told an irresistibly funny joke at some point in the first 60 seconds and finding myself completely unable to suppress laughing out loud for the entire remainder of the trip. This was what I'd been missing! This is where I'd gone so very wrong! Not just omitting the social side - many of my rides of old were solitary, just me with my thoughts - but not realising the fantastic fun of the unplanned, unregimented, spontaneous, 'get-out-there-and-do-it' approach. The 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' philosophy. It was the well-timed kick up the bum I needed.
From that day on cycling was fun again. I went out the next day, and the next. It gave me a high just getting my bike out. I tidied my bike shed. I sorted my tools. I emptied and repacked my backpack with the essentials. I reminded myself how to make a good energy drink. I reminded myself as well how much I used to love cycling, how I used feel restless if I missed out on an opportunity for a ride. I vowed never to let the same malaise settle upon me again. I had somehow made cycling boring. From now on, routine circuits were out: randomness was in. With Mrs B's encouragement (I think she could sense the mental fudge I had fallen into) I started cycling whenever the opportunity presented itself. These last few weeks in particular, I've felt again the exhilaration of reaching the summit of a hill; or going over a bridge, pausing for a drink mid-way and watching the traffic/trains/canal boats below; or just the game of calling for 'more ooomph from the legs, Scotty' on some random, never-ending, grit-stewn slope and smiling to myself with stupid pleasure as the legs reply: 'Aye, Captain!' [Yes - still got it, old man!]
Something else that vanished until this week was my regular visits to this forum.
This has been a rambling post, for which I apologise. My old job involved a great deal of writing of text - reporting, dealing with press and so on - but tonight, my tired mind (yes - a superb bikeride earlier today) is more concerned with just getting the story down rather than proofreading and polishing it.
Bottom line: I got my cycling enjoyment back. Beanzontoast - a forum label I can refer to once again without feeling like an interloper.
I honestly didn't realise how much I'd missed cycling - how much I needed cycling for my body's and brain's sake, and how much I'd painted myself into a soul-zappingly regimented cycling corner - until I stopped beating myself up, let go and gave myself permission to go with the flow. No targets, no measurements, no punishments and no medals. Just in time (only just: I had seriously been considering selling my road bike some days before that railway cycle track ride) I realised I had to stop treating my beloved steed as an exercise bike, stop looking on cycling as a chore and start learning to enjoy riding again.
Soaking in the beautiful countryside, the sensational air, the tired muscles, the taste of sweat on my forearm... all of it. Cycling - I have missed you, but I'm back now.
Beanzontoast.
(Cyclist)
First off, I got soft about commuting by bike.
I was a year-round, all-weather bike commuter for over a decade. There was a kind of pride to it. I might not be any kind of an athlete or sports person, but what the heck - I biked to and from work every day, didn't I?! I got knocked off but I mended and came back to my bike. Time spent cleaning and otherwise working on the bikes was time I spent gladly. Ditto money: if something could be purchased to enhance my cycling (assuming I could fund it) I bought it. If there was something to be tweaked, I was happy to tweak it.
And then my daughter's job changed and she got her own car for going to work in the city. I also worked in the city. Simple logic then. Who needed the hassle of commuting by bike? Suddenly, I could get a lift into the city centre with her each morning, have time for a leisurely coffee in a cafe, then take the short walk to my own place of work. Novelty became the norm. Coming home at the end of the work day, I could either wait for her to finish and get a lift back, walk the six miles home (which I did maybe once a fortnight), get a lift from Mrs Beanz on days when she had been shopping during the afternoon or catch a bus. The advantages of it all seduced me. Now, I stayed largely dry while commuting, got extra father-daughter chatting time every day and arrived home with no bike or bike kit to sort out. I felt quite smug and boasted to people about how perfect the arrangement was. Ok I was no longer a commuting cyclist - but I was still a cyclist. I was at pains to point that out to whoever asked if I had 'given up'. I had done no such thing. I mean, I had my CTC membership didn't I? And my local cycle group membership and there were still my weekend cycle rides into the countryside for exercise of course...
Secondly, I foolishly made that leisure cycling into a chore.
It started when I had a couple of p***tures while out on those longer weekend exploring rides. As I sat fixing them, I realised that instead of being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a problem, there was a perfectly good hilly route around the suburb of the city where I lived. I could easily get in 10 miles in, say, an hour and never get more than a mile from home. If it rained, I could be home in 5-10 mins. I tried it out and it worked perfectly. I got to know the route very well and completed it dozens and dozens and dozens of times. It never varied: the scenery was the same, the people were the same. It was as though the bike knew the way and I was just providing the motive power. I congratulated myself that I was getting effective exercise with minimal intellectual effort. At the same time I also felt that - as I wasn't commuting by bike any more - I really needed to get out there every weekend without fail. And so it was that that urban circuit became my self-imposed, compulsory gym. All at once, getting the bike out one cold, grey Saturday morning, having had to talk myself into sliding out of a cosy bed and into my bike kit, I realised it wasn't fun any more.
The next weekend, I found other things to keep me busy. The weekend after, I used the inclement-looking weather as an excuse. (The weather! Me, the hardened road-warrior who used to take the 'Smoke me a kipper - I'll be back for breakfast' approach to every time of day and weather condition known to man and dog excepting the nastiest of sheet ice. Me, with just about every bit of foul weather bike gear in creation lying about unused!).
Then, unexpectedly, I finished work. It was my choice, planned over a matter of three months: a little earlier than originally expected in The Big Plan of My Life, but nearing 60 I felt ok about it. There had been health things affecting others close to me and bereavement in the immediate family during the year before that had given me pause for reflection. I was at ease with my decision about retiring.
Strangely, given I wasn't commuting any more and could cycle for leisure all I wanted, I did no such thing. The brakes were off and yet, ironically, the wheels were not going around. I stopped cycling.
Six months went by. Fast-forward to this summer...
I hadn't been inside the bike shed for a month. (I'd even managed to give it a coat of exterior weatherproofing without once feeling the need to peek inside. I knew full well what awaited me: bikes sitting dormant under their dust sheets. Bikes that needed tyres checking, a wipe over etc. - the usual weekly stuff that I had somehow not bothered doing for what seemed a very long time. Bikes that needed riding. Bikes that were a reminder that I was turning into - assuming I wasn't one already - an ex-cyclist).
Then, out of the blue one morning in early July, daughter and wife both asked to go for a bikeride. We hadn't done this together in an age. I only had a couple of hours notice and their bikes were in even worse state than mine. It had always fallen to me - the 'expert' - to set their bikes up, maintain them and generally keep them fettled. Recently, that had taken a back seat too. (I could add ex-mechanic to my resume, it seemed). Cue the father/husband figure engaging in some hectic frame cleaning, frantic pumping-up of tyres, checking of brakes and adjusting of saddles while the wife/daughter combo sorted and adjusted helmets, retrieved bike gloves and bike glasses and decided on a route. Nothing exotic, just an amble along a cycle track (a disused railway now maintained by Sustrans) for an hour in one direction and the same again back homewards.
In that one hour, my enthusiasm came right back. It was like being told an irresistibly funny joke at some point in the first 60 seconds and finding myself completely unable to suppress laughing out loud for the entire remainder of the trip. This was what I'd been missing! This is where I'd gone so very wrong! Not just omitting the social side - many of my rides of old were solitary, just me with my thoughts - but not realising the fantastic fun of the unplanned, unregimented, spontaneous, 'get-out-there-and-do-it' approach. The 'make-it-up-as-you-go-along' philosophy. It was the well-timed kick up the bum I needed.
From that day on cycling was fun again. I went out the next day, and the next. It gave me a high just getting my bike out. I tidied my bike shed. I sorted my tools. I emptied and repacked my backpack with the essentials. I reminded myself how to make a good energy drink. I reminded myself as well how much I used to love cycling, how I used feel restless if I missed out on an opportunity for a ride. I vowed never to let the same malaise settle upon me again. I had somehow made cycling boring. From now on, routine circuits were out: randomness was in. With Mrs B's encouragement (I think she could sense the mental fudge I had fallen into) I started cycling whenever the opportunity presented itself. These last few weeks in particular, I've felt again the exhilaration of reaching the summit of a hill; or going over a bridge, pausing for a drink mid-way and watching the traffic/trains/canal boats below; or just the game of calling for 'more ooomph from the legs, Scotty' on some random, never-ending, grit-stewn slope and smiling to myself with stupid pleasure as the legs reply: 'Aye, Captain!' [Yes - still got it, old man!]
Something else that vanished until this week was my regular visits to this forum.
This has been a rambling post, for which I apologise. My old job involved a great deal of writing of text - reporting, dealing with press and so on - but tonight, my tired mind (yes - a superb bikeride earlier today) is more concerned with just getting the story down rather than proofreading and polishing it.
Bottom line: I got my cycling enjoyment back. Beanzontoast - a forum label I can refer to once again without feeling like an interloper.
I honestly didn't realise how much I'd missed cycling - how much I needed cycling for my body's and brain's sake, and how much I'd painted myself into a soul-zappingly regimented cycling corner - until I stopped beating myself up, let go and gave myself permission to go with the flow. No targets, no measurements, no punishments and no medals. Just in time (only just: I had seriously been considering selling my road bike some days before that railway cycle track ride) I realised I had to stop treating my beloved steed as an exercise bike, stop looking on cycling as a chore and start learning to enjoy riding again.
Soaking in the beautiful countryside, the sensational air, the tired muscles, the taste of sweat on my forearm... all of it. Cycling - I have missed you, but I'm back now.
Beanzontoast.
(Cyclist)
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