Cycling as a spiritual and psychologically uplifting experience

[summerdays]

For me its some of what has been posted above - though not the hills - I don't enjoy expending that much effort to go just a short distance, but if I didn't have the uphill's I wouldn't get the long freewheel's downhill again. But there is something about being on the bike that feels like its flying/gliding - you can be in your own bubble sort of isolated from the world but equally enveloped by it. I don't get the same feeling in either a car or walking. Its both exhilarating and calming and you look at non-cyclists and wonder why they can't see/feel what you do. And when I'm not on my bike but see a cyclist - I'm wanting to say I cycle too.

What I don't understand is why I waited until I was nearly 40 to make this discovery....

 

[david w 1]

I agree...........the climbs are painful at times but what satisfaction.... the descents i still find scary but secretly love!! Yesterday i was flying along a flat section of road with a following wind for about 6 miles!! i felt at peace just the rhythm of my pedal strokes and the whirr of tyre on tarmac........

the pertol heads drool over the latest sports car but it's just a car............ ..............if only more people woke up to this................your bicycle is your best friend...........

 

[magnatom]

A lot of the above certainly is true. Cycling has taken me (physically) to places I have never been before, and allowed me to experience them in ways I never would have otherwise.

I haven't managed many recreational cycles this year, unfortunately. However, one that I did manage took me along the shores of Loch Carron on the way to Stirling. A nice smooth rural B road, which can be very quiet at times. On this particular day it was glorious sunshine, not a breeze and just a nice temperature. I was having amazing fun riding along when I suddenly had the urge to stop. I wasn't sure why but I did. Then I looked and listened. Not another human in sight, the loch was like a glass sheet and the only sounds were distant bird song and flowing water from a nearby stream. I''m not a spiritual person, but for a moment it felt like nirvana.

Another highlight of that day was having reached the top of the big climb (Crow Road in the Campsies) a motorcyclist on a Harley came up beside me, turned to look at me with a huge grin on his face and said, 'isn't this wonderful? Glorious day, not seen a car in ages! Have a great day my friend'...and shot off.


If I didn't cycle I wouldn't have wonderful experiences like above. Long may my wheels keep turning!

 

[Riverman]

I was slightly inebriated when I wrote posted this although it still holds.

I think if I were to single out one thing which cycling does for me is that it seems to take away all the negative things that are going on in my life. I've got a lot of issues to contend with at the moment and these issues just seem to fade into the background whist I'm riding. Thus, the bike makes me feel free.