The Trek 1000 and our pond in the early morning hours on a quick ride before work.
It is now May and this post would have been best posted near the beginning of the previous month, but it wasn't. A part of me wishes that I could be better about posting here and updating as often as I would like, but the other part of me is just thankful to get through one day at a time during this busy, busy part of the year. I also know that the audience for this blog is super small, so not so many folks are checking here, so I really have nothing to worry about, but still I like to post and wish things were slightly different, but it is Spring and I'm a teacher and a coach, so I leave work only for these short bits of time that many would call dinner and a short nap. I'm also thankful to have run across this little challenge and glad I attempted it and made it into the saddle for even the shortest of rides during each day of this past month. In Grant Petersen's book, Just Ride, he has a little part of it titled something along the lines of there being no such thing as too little of an amount of time for a ride or no such thing as too short of a ride to be worth it and goes onto to say if all you get to do is ride five minutes each day, then that is enough. I value this kind of thinking. It seems pretty rational and very realistic, but also highly hopeful.
I cannot physically or mentally name ten complete items that I find more joy in than getting on a bike and riding it. I'm sure if you follow this blog or my Instagram account you know this already. You may even think you know it too much and wish I would branch out. I also cannot fully say why being on a bike brings me so much joy. I know that may seem a little odd, like it should be a very easy answer, but just think about something that brings you joy. Is it just a simple answer of what exactly about that item or action brings you joy or does it get a little murky when you try to zero in on a single answer? If you are the type of person that is great at getting to the root of things, great. I'm not that type of person. If something brings me to some sort of emotional ending, then it's usually a heterogeneous mixture of items and I cannot plainly see the separation of where one part of the joy blends into the next or the overall joy. I hope everything you love or find joy in is like that for you.
And being on a bike is that for me. No, it's not the thing in my life that brings me the most joy and it's not something that hasn't brought anger, or frustration, or disappointment to me. But if you can think back to when you first learned to ride, the joy that it brought you, the smile on your face, the satisfaction, the wind in your face, the joy of powering your whole body into motion, and the freedom that comes from movement then you can remember that joy and the simple wonders of it. Now think about how you felt when you got together with a few friends for a ride from one place of play to the next and all the places in the middle. Remember those feelings. Do you miss them? Well...there is some really good news. You can still do that. It's not just for kids. You, yeah you. Yes, you too. It doesn't matter if you are 8 or 88, you can jump, climb, load, crawl, etc. onto a bike and ride around the block or down your driveway and still have those same feelings. It can be any bike. It doesn't have to cost you three arms and your first born and it doesn't have to have shocks or be aerodynamic. It can be old and rusty or right off the Wal-Mart shelf. And then add a few friends who are also in the market for this type of action and you still get the same feelings or at least as physically close as you can hope.
You may have to leave those friends who need the "grind" of a long ride where you don't talk during the ride and sit in sweaty spandex afterwards talking of cadence, pedal rotations, rpm's, racing weight, racing wear, aerodynamics, etc. while leaning on a car or truck in a parking lot in a small state of disappointment because you're just not riding how you think you should be and how the pros do. They'll be sure to ruin the moment. Now you should still race your friends to the next power pole or home. It was fun when you were a kid and its still fun now. And you should still take your hands off the handlebars and ride with them held in the air down a hill. It feels the same as it did when you were a kid and it is just as exhilarating. If a fellow adult yells at you from a car or shakes their head from their yard, or tells you need to get serious, ride as fast as possible away from them. Those serious things are waiting for you as soon as you step off, or you are like me and ride most of the time with a little one behind you, the serious things are behind you. And as Ernest Hemingway is credited with saying that when you stop doing things for fun, you might as well be dead. I completely agree.
And being on a bike is that for me. No, it's not the thing in my life that brings me the most joy and it's not something that hasn't brought anger, or frustration, or disappointment to me. But if you can think back to when you first learned to ride, the joy that it brought you, the smile on your face, the satisfaction, the wind in your face, the joy of powering your whole body into motion, and the freedom that comes from movement then you can remember that joy and the simple wonders of it. Now think about how you felt when you got together with a few friends for a ride from one place of play to the next and all the places in the middle. Remember those feelings. Do you miss them? Well...there is some really good news. You can still do that. It's not just for kids. You, yeah you. Yes, you too. It doesn't matter if you are 8 or 88, you can jump, climb, load, crawl, etc. onto a bike and ride around the block or down your driveway and still have those same feelings. It can be any bike. It doesn't have to cost you three arms and your first born and it doesn't have to have shocks or be aerodynamic. It can be old and rusty or right off the Wal-Mart shelf. And then add a few friends who are also in the market for this type of action and you still get the same feelings or at least as physically close as you can hope.
You may have to leave those friends who need the "grind" of a long ride where you don't talk during the ride and sit in sweaty spandex afterwards talking of cadence, pedal rotations, rpm's, racing weight, racing wear, aerodynamics, etc. while leaning on a car or truck in a parking lot in a small state of disappointment because you're just not riding how you think you should be and how the pros do. They'll be sure to ruin the moment. Now you should still race your friends to the next power pole or home. It was fun when you were a kid and its still fun now. And you should still take your hands off the handlebars and ride with them held in the air down a hill. It feels the same as it did when you were a kid and it is just as exhilarating. If a fellow adult yells at you from a car or shakes their head from their yard, or tells you need to get serious, ride as fast as possible away from them. Those serious things are waiting for you as soon as you step off, or you are like me and ride most of the time with a little one behind you, the serious things are behind you. And as Ernest Hemingway is credited with saying that when you stop doing things for fun, you might as well be dead. I completely agree.
And this brings us to this post. I know this challenge is over, but I still wanted to put something out about it. 30 Days of Biking is the brain child of Patrick Stephenson. He found himself where most unmarried guys find themselves soon after college and that was gaining weight, bored, wasting time on video games and caught up in the cycle of not knowing how to fill those few hours between work and being back at work again. He had a friend around that time that biked and shared the joys of biking with him and this shared joy got Patrick off the couch and into the saddle and when he heard another friend was doing a 30 day yoga challenge decided to see if he could ride his bike for same 30 day period and thus the, 30 Days of Biking, was begun with the hash tag, #30daysofbiking. His enthusiasm caught on quickly and the challenge spread throughout the country and then into the world at large pretty quickly. The first year, 2010, there were only a few and now in 2015, there are almost 10K cyclists. The two friends, Patrick S. and Zach Schaap, decided to make all this passion and enthusiasm count for more than just a mere hash tag and so they teamed up with, Free Bikes 4 Kidz, and several other sponsors who told them they would donate one bike to a kid without one for every 30 pledges to ride each day in April. This year almost 300 bikes were given away. Not too shabby since just a few years ago Patrick Stephenson was stuck on a couch playing, "Call of Duty".
I saw this little challenge last year, but wasn't really sure what it was and it seemed a little like a scam, so I never looked into it much, but this year, I looked it up and did a little research and found out quickly that it was all on the up and up and that if I would just pledge to ride my bike each day in April, I could help donate a bike to a kid who didn't have one. What really pulled me in besides the bike donation item was this whole idea of just having to ride for a small amount of time each day. There were no mileage requirements, hour requirements, finding sponsors, etc. It was just pledge to ride and then carve out a few minutes each day and ride. That was it. And I was in.
I pledged sometime late March and by the end of April, I had ridden a few miles short of a 150. Yes, I got in some good, longish (in my standards) rides by myself and with FH, but there were also many rides where I only had time for a super quick ride down our driveway and back. But I never felt like I was really slacking because all you were required to do was just get on your bike and ride for a little while. I will admit that I did not ride every day of April. There were five or six days were it was really rainy, stormy, or just one of those days where I had to leave home a little after 6 am and didn't get home till almost 11 pm and there just wasn't a single free second, but I did make up for those times by doubling and sometimes tripling up on other days. The main idea was to just be able to ride for a little while each day and I did and it was always worth it no matter how short the ride was.
I saw this little challenge last year, but wasn't really sure what it was and it seemed a little like a scam, so I never looked into it much, but this year, I looked it up and did a little research and found out quickly that it was all on the up and up and that if I would just pledge to ride my bike each day in April, I could help donate a bike to a kid who didn't have one. What really pulled me in besides the bike donation item was this whole idea of just having to ride for a small amount of time each day. There were no mileage requirements, hour requirements, finding sponsors, etc. It was just pledge to ride and then carve out a few minutes each day and ride. That was it. And I was in.
I pledged sometime late March and by the end of April, I had ridden a few miles short of a 150. Yes, I got in some good, longish (in my standards) rides by myself and with FH, but there were also many rides where I only had time for a super quick ride down our driveway and back. But I never felt like I was really slacking because all you were required to do was just get on your bike and ride for a little while. I will admit that I did not ride every day of April. There were five or six days were it was really rainy, stormy, or just one of those days where I had to leave home a little after 6 am and didn't get home till almost 11 pm and there just wasn't a single free second, but I did make up for those times by doubling and sometimes tripling up on other days. The main idea was to just be able to ride for a little while each day and I did and it was always worth it no matter how short the ride was.
I will look forward to this challenge next April and may try to do this in other months this year as well. I really liked looking forward to the chance of getting to ride each day. It made even the busiest or hardest days seem like there was a little extra light in the day. I think all people should do this sort of thing; install something small in each day that they look forward to no matter how small it may be. You may not always get to do it, but when you do, it makes it so much better. Getting to start my day on my bike or take a quick ride before I got to read to and put FH to bed was a bright spot in each day.
And when I think about hobbies, that is how I think they should be thought of and pursued. I know this has a slight tinge of sadness to yet, but it is wholly realistic. Yes, it'd be great and ideal if I could load up my bike and head off into the horizon and that is where I think most people leave their thinking at. It is where my thinking stayed for such a long, long time until very recently.They just sit and wish for those days, but those days don't exist. I think we often look at hobbies or those who live life solely by them and are lifted up as idols as the ones who are really out there and "living", but we forget to think about our commonplace lives and remember that, that too is living. If I were touring the world on a bike, think of all of my life that I would be missing, even the parts that seem to be pure drudgery. I think we are too quick to see what others are "getting" to do and label that as living while forgetting that we too are getting to live our lives too; that if I were in Patagonia on a bike then think about all of my current life of Mel, FH, teaching, coaching, life lessons, relationships that I would be completely missing. I would hate that. I wouldn't want that.
Happy reading and happy riding,
DAVID
