My latest blog article tries to explain the Spiritual side of long distance bike riding
Why do we go there?
- Thread starter vorsprung
- Start date
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ZIZAG
Veteran
- Location
- NW . Cheshire
I tend to agree with you .
The challenge of going further . And being on your own . Always looking for the next place .
Its definatley Spiritual .
Its definatley Spiritual .
I've always thought that geography (and, therefore, history) played a very great part in the significance of long rides. It helps, of course, if you have some connection with the landscape - which could be personal, or mythical.
I wonder, VP, if you've ever ridden long distances over terrain that you've no connection with, and whether that makes a difference?
I wonder, VP, if you've ever ridden long distances over terrain that you've no connection with, and whether that makes a difference?
I like riding in Wales. Before I started audax riding I'd been there a couple of times on holiday, that's all. Of course now it is familiar from many Byran Chapman Memorial rides. So the landscape on repeated rides recalls previous experience
If I go past some place with an interesting history to it, then yes I'd say that does put your mind on a different track. For instance, at the top of the first climb on the mountain road from Rhyader to Cwmstwyth there is a sheep pen. The sheep pen is built on the remains of a roman fort. You can't help but imagine the fort being there. And that will put your mind in a different state.
But even with the most dull set of circumstances imaginable: ie riding at night across Lincolnshire, the other factors of the endurance and being alone still help to make it potentially a significant moment.
It really is a good question (in my mind at least!) and I want to respond before reading the blog.
I do ask myself why frequently, too frequently perhaps. I should just enjoy it. But.... it IS bonkers. And I don't mean that as some kind of inverse compliment, or self-satisfied ego thing. I asked a club mate once if he was interested in riding a 200km with me. No, came the reply, too far - I don't want to spend all day riding, I've other things to do. That, imho, is a completely sane response. The response of a 'normal' person, whatever normal might be. So, yes, I think there is some kind of curious mental desire that motivates. Something a little particular/peculiar.
Clearly, I enjoy riding. That's the starting point and the basic motivation. But what motivates someone to want to spend all day (and sometimes night) doing it? In my case, I really do think it is to do with some kind of personal achievement; something that means something to me and not anyone else's measure.
When I ride, I'm completely self dependant. My success or failure is entirely governed by my own strengths and abilities. I can come back off a ride with a feeling of self validation. I feel healthy both of body and mind. It gives me an inner confidence, I don't need to tell anyone of it. I know what I've done in my own terms and I care not for it's meaninglessness to other people. It's probably the only thing I do that gives me exactly that same feeling.
There is a danger methinks (and it's there for anybody undertaking any activity); obsession. Yesterday, despite the pissing rain and gusts, I HAD to go out to ride. I was going stir crazy sat inside looking at it, and couldn't think of anything else to do. I was tense and restless. I only did 50km but it calmed me, I felt I'd done something. I could put a tick against the day and go to bed with a clean conscience! (Btw, I AM over dramatising but there's a seed of truth in it!)
I do ask myself why frequently, too frequently perhaps. I should just enjoy it. But.... it IS bonkers. And I don't mean that as some kind of inverse compliment, or self-satisfied ego thing. I asked a club mate once if he was interested in riding a 200km with me. No, came the reply, too far - I don't want to spend all day riding, I've other things to do. That, imho, is a completely sane response. The response of a 'normal' person, whatever normal might be. So, yes, I think there is some kind of curious mental desire that motivates. Something a little particular/peculiar.
Clearly, I enjoy riding. That's the starting point and the basic motivation. But what motivates someone to want to spend all day (and sometimes night) doing it? In my case, I really do think it is to do with some kind of personal achievement; something that means something to me and not anyone else's measure.
When I ride, I'm completely self dependant. My success or failure is entirely governed by my own strengths and abilities. I can come back off a ride with a feeling of self validation. I feel healthy both of body and mind. It gives me an inner confidence, I don't need to tell anyone of it. I know what I've done in my own terms and I care not for it's meaninglessness to other people. It's probably the only thing I do that gives me exactly that same feeling.
There is a danger methinks (and it's there for anybody undertaking any activity); obsession. Yesterday, despite the pissing rain and gusts, I HAD to go out to ride. I was going stir crazy sat inside looking at it, and couldn't think of anything else to do. I was tense and restless. I only did 50km but it calmed me, I felt I'd done something. I could put a tick against the day and go to bed with a clean conscience! (Btw, I AM over dramatising but there's a seed of truth in it!)
Yes, that's there too for me. For me, it's a further justification and pleasure rather than, if I'm honest, a motivation.
I find there is absolutely something about the isolation or solitariness of cycling. You do regard the world in a completely different way when you've somehow removed yourself from it. There's a placid obviousness about what is happening around you. Something completely natural and relaxed (even with a violent wind tearing at trees). Things seem as they are; no need for further thought or confusing interpretation. The world's a joyous place, for me, when viewed in that way.
I have a number of friends who I only ever meet when I am out on these somewhat specialist long distance bike rides. Because we share some experiences like traveling 20 miles uphill into a gale in the rain or struggling to stay awake at 3am just a few km from the finish, there is a bond there. But the main way in which the Spiritual life and the long journey in the wilderness are connected is not in cameradie but inside yourself.
s'funny. For me the best thing about cycling is the company of friends. My thoughts are very often my own, but it's so much a team thing (taking a turn at the front, helping out with mechanicals and so on) that I find friendships in cycling.
And sharing the joy seems to make it that much more joyful. Although not everyone who followed me up Basser Hill is going to agree with that...
s'funny. For me the best thing about cycling is the company of friends. My thoughts are very often my own, but it's so much a team thing (taking a turn at the front, helping out with mechanicals and so on) that I find friendships in cycling.
And sharing the joy seems to make it that much more joyful. Although not everyone who followed me up Basser Hill is going to agree with that...
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
A few years ago, I persuaded a colleague to start cycling with me. We ended up doing a ride of 2-3 hours once a week. After a while, I asked if he fancied doing a longer ride, say 5-6 hours. He looked baffled and said that he'd be totally bored. Why would he need to do that when he was getting the fitness benefits he wanted from 2 hours?
It came as a bit of a shock to me. I felt that if something was enjoyable, then surely twice as much of it would be even more enjoyable? Then I thought about it and saw his point. For him, cycling was a means to an end. He enjoyed it in small doses, knowing that it was getting him fitter, but he wanted to achieve his goals in the minimum amount of time, not to maximise the time he spent doing it.
You can understand that 'means to an end' perspective, you really can. I guess we all have it, just that we have different ends.
Re boredom; I have experienced it once. Doing a 300 a few years back, a LEL prep ride; one I felt I had to do rather than particularly wanted to. It set in at around 250km and I could have gotten off the bike (chucked it in a ditch even!) I really couldn't see the sense in what I was doing, even in my terms. I toughed it out which was, in itself, a good lesson. Oddly, as I recall, I felt little satisfaction after that ride! There was little joy, more relief to have gotten it out the way.
theclaud: I don't remember this hill. It must be the one Simon was threatening on the forum.
rich p (now out of the saddle): FFS! Why the f**k is everyone stopping on the f**king hill?
theclaud: I think it's a viewpoint...
rich p: F..K THAT!
GrumpyGregry
Here for rides.
Most of my long rides end up back where I started, my own front door, or the front door of the B&B I'm staying at. I finish generally where I start. So for me it is all about the journey. Every long ride is some sort of pilgrimage visiting a portable two wheeled shrine which I sit atop as it carries me through the landscape, away from home yet nearer to returning to it with every turn of the pedal.
Most are done solo, though it has been a joy to discover FNRttC and long runs with like minded clubmates in recent years.
Wales. Rural Wales is a 'thin' place. So is Northumbria, so is the Peak and the Pennines. Romney Marsh, Pevensey Levels, and that lane in the middle of nowhere that once ridden you can never seem to find again. In thin places the fabric of time and space and civilisation is not as strong as it is more urban urbane locations. We feel as if we can touch the past, we see the present for what it is, a fleeting moment carried off on the wind. We are creatures who are connected to the 'outside outdoor world', it is where we evolved. We are connected to those who went before us on lkevles that science cannot yet explain and far far beyond mere genes. On a long ride all the acretions of ego and pose and image get stripped away until it is just me, a tiny insignificant speck, a mote of stuff, in the eye that is the world and its history.
Most are done solo, though it has been a joy to discover FNRttC and long runs with like minded clubmates in recent years.
Wales. Rural Wales is a 'thin' place. So is Northumbria, so is the Peak and the Pennines. Romney Marsh, Pevensey Levels, and that lane in the middle of nowhere that once ridden you can never seem to find again. In thin places the fabric of time and space and civilisation is not as strong as it is more urban urbane locations. We feel as if we can touch the past, we see the present for what it is, a fleeting moment carried off on the wind. We are creatures who are connected to the 'outside outdoor world', it is where we evolved. We are connected to those who went before us on lkevles that science cannot yet explain and far far beyond mere genes. On a long ride all the acretions of ego and pose and image get stripped away until it is just me, a tiny insignificant speck, a mote of stuff, in the eye that is the world and its history.
With you until there and, even then, still on the same journey. I don't feel insignificant as such, just equally significant/insignificant as everything else around me.
I don't feel inferior or out of place, just perhaps not so central or as important as I thought I was. Still belonging but apart enough to see it. I think that could be why I find it so uplifting; the fact I am part of much bigger story.
Re the history aspect (mentioned twice now); I've never quite tuned to that perspective as other people do. Perhaps I do sense it but am not quite aware of it in manifest terms. I can imagine a history but have no notion or feeling of it's reality.
GrumpyGregry
Here for rides.
Good points well made.
I don't think I feel insignifciant in the sense of inferior in these moments just I'm aware of my tinyness in the big picture. The zen bit of the History with an captial often starts with me thinking about the road I'm on in context, in the landscape, in the human geography, who built it? why does it take this route and not that one? How long has that pub sat there? Who owned that big house up on the hill? This looks like a pit village. That sort of thing. But I even get a sense of immediate recent history with an small H, old bunting still strung up, the old posters advertising last weeks fete, even the road strewn with grass or hedge clippings. Something happened before I got here something will happen after I've gone both unseen by me.
What after all is history really than the things that happen that we don't see?
I think I'm with you on that one. Villages around here often have a small communal noticeboard, I like to read the notices on there (even, sadly, the official notices of roadworks and the like!) as indicators of what goes on. More often than not, they are for past events. It does make me think of people in community halls; events that I didn't witness but know occurred and, equally, occur in many communes.
I think I've used the phrase before on another thread but cycling sometimes feels to me like travelling voyeurism. Can one call it voyeuristic to look upon past events in your mind? I think so. Having attended such events, you build a sense of what happened even if the facts are unknown.
I agree too with the feeling like a small part in a bigger picture, I think that's the sense of insignificant significance that I seem to level out at.
