The Joy of Riding Bikes ...

Going fast.

Two back to back viruses means I last road my bike 2 weeks ago today.

I’m generally very good at getting through the winter. Road rides or the odd bit of more armoured trail. Using the forecast to choose the best bit of the day. Revelling in the mud if necessary.

But not riding is all I need to remind me that any riding is better than no riding

I live on the green sand ridge. We get a great spring effect where as the sandy trails dry they get faster. They kind of get a hardish surface for a while. Then they dry out to sand and slow down again. So spring can be really great

I find it very hard to explain, I just like being on my bike.

I don’t have to go far, it doesn’t have to be exciting or beautiful, the weather doesn’t have to be great. I don’t need a purpose, or a particular place to go, or have to be with any others. I don’t necessarily need to head to new places, I don’t have to spend thousands on having ‘the best’ bike or gear, I don’t feel I have to achieve anything. I just like being on my bike.

All of the above things can help of course, and make a ride extra special, but it’s the ride I like, everything else is just add-ons.

This is something I also find hard to put into words. The best I can manage is, the only time I feel truly alive is doing something with a risk of serious injury or death.

So looking forward to some all day rides over the tops with a couple of cheese and onion rolls where we can sit eat and talk crap without a care in the world. Winching and plummeting in the mud is ok but sort of leaves me wanting something else.

Just love being on 2 wheels with only my legs as an engine. Finding new routes and achieiving personal goals are great. Also love the feeling of aching legs duting dinnet after a long hard ride. It makes ot feel like ive earned dinner.

Couple of weeks ago we heard/saw the first very newborn lamb of the season 🐑

It had been abandoned by it's mum and the farmer was just collecting it to go into the adoption pen, but even so.

Did a local hill this afternoon that I've never actually done before. 90 minutes to get to the top and 50 minutes to get home again, smiling all the way.

I had the good fortune to finish a job by lunchtime today so went home and got out on the road bike for a couple of hours. I was only thinking how great it was just to be in the countryside with just pedalling to keep the wheels turning.
Nothing better.

But not riding is all I need to remind me that any riding is better than no riding

Exactly this. I can’t ever remember regretting going out for a bike ride.

Chasing my mates round the woods, it was ace.

One has got himself a mountain bike after years on cross bikes. He is massively faster and did one of the trickier drops in the woods.

When asked how it was he said exilerating 😃

Had business in London today so jumped on one of the Santander bikes and cruised down regents canal in the fresh morning Sun.

Glorious, bikes is ace, regardless of where you ride them.

Manchester Velodrome this evening for an hour. It's the first time since before the Covid lockdown for various reasons. Bloody brilliant to be spinning round the track again.

Theres talk of doing the BMX next week, which TBH is even better/more knackering.

Just back from last velodrome track league night. Whilst I may be making up the numbers, it never ceases to thrill and strangely relax in equal measure. And it’s indoors. No turbo session ever came close. And nor did virtual racing. I think of it as mind bleach

Then I sat on the Elizabeth Line from Stratford to Heathrow and rode the last four miles home on the Mezzo folder. Again, a lovely ride and an artic sat politely behind me before turning off. Bikes are great.

Weirdly enough ... it's winter I like riding most, not only because it's the dry season here.
Being out in the dark feels special.

I pedalled up to a bit of moorland above Brighouse/Elland to do a bit of trail maintainence on Monday, the sun was out, there was a bit of heat in the day and the gorse was covered in beautiful bright yellow flowers 🙂

Obviously it still rained hard enough for 5 minutes to soak me through on the way back!

We're nearly there folks, hopefully. I can't wait for the steeper stuff to lose its coating of deep mud.

And in deference to the OP, for the first time in years, I've been hardtail only over winter and it has brought me lots of joy 🙂

Endorphins, serotonin and dopamine, plus the meditative effect of pedalling, combined with the off road ability of modern bikes taking you into beautiful countryside.

The few brief seconds at the start of a climb where I imagine I'm launching some epic TdF breakaway on Alpe d'Huez.

I felt a bit of the joy of riding last month in Malaga. Rough, fast, scary trails and big drifty, dusty corners everywhere. It was blissful.

Apart from that nothing. It's been pissing down since July.

Looking forward to boosting local jumps and maybe some uplift days.

I love the change in temperatures as you cycle along some days - sometimes the winter shelter of a woodland is within a few metres a couple of degrees warmer, but in the summer the same woodland or shadow is so quickly a few degrees cooler.

I love the fact I see so much more from a bike - like walking - that slower, more sensory, more connected experience. You meet people, see wildlife, spot things you just would not from a car.

That said, I also like how far I can travel on a bike in a few hours - a real journeying machine.

Hayfever.

I jest, a little.

for me, its the feeling of free speed. I've been good this winter, lost a little weight, lots of Zwift, a decent (relative for me) amount of real riding, and I already feel good. Plus a new bike over winter.

Really looking forward to the way that all comes together in the Spring to that 'holy crap, I feel fit, fast, this is fun, I'm smashing turns and blasting up climbs I used to slog up, this is bliss' feeling.

Spring/Summer is gravel for me (I'm dearly hoping it dries out soon).

I think May is peak riding, looong bright days, the ground is dry and fast, the woodlands are alive and vibrant! The greens are the brighest. But the air still has that nip, a cool breeze blows through, which I love. And the stingers have yet to get going.

Then as the summer gets going properly, lots of long post work evenings out in the countryside riding the chalk byways and droves. The weekly club evening rides, followed by beers in the pub until late.

I don't mind riding through winter tbh, as other have said, just being in the saddle is medative in itself. I think it's the rhythmic breathing and the cadence of the legs.

But summer riding, oh I love it!

I love riding bikes because...

It gets me outside - which is the only place I feel relaxed and free

It exercises my body - which makes me feel strong and healthy despite my 56 years

It relieves my mind of the normal worries - if only for a bit

I have never regretted going for a ride on my/any bike :o)

I'm looking forward to the appearance of the bracken - round here it's the start of the trail/bog-drying process

This piccy of the GF from the weekend sums it up for me, I think...

At the very basic level, I think there is a bit of your brain that is impressed by how fast/comparatively easily you are moving; compared to its baseline experience with walking/normal movment. You can feel this any time you ride any bike.

Progress on a bit, and cycle for "sport" or exercise, you get a dopamine buzz or a bit of a rush from challenging yourself. Doesn't need to be a bikepark gnarfest, just accellerating a road bike out of a corner can give you a bit of a rush.
Even the unfittest beginner can acheive this a few seconds at a time, so its easy to get hooked on it.

Just waiting for the leaf buds to break open you can almost feel the trees sucking the trails dry.

All of this, really. The green, the sunshine, the longer nights. The peace and quiet. The sound my tyres make in the dirt. The pint in the pub afterwards. The big days out with a start before dawn. The possibilities for the summer of riding. Imagining those big dusty rides that never quite materialise. Planning a weekend away. Watching the sunset from my local Trig and watching the beam spread from my lights. Feeling the ache in my legs. Feeling the bike load up just right when you nail a corner. That sense of terror and exhilaration as you dare yourself to leave the brakes off that bit longeror send that jump a little bit harder. Spending the day at work looking at the blue sky and anticipating the evening ride. All these are Good Things and for me are the joy that comes from riding a bike.

nothing to add but this

Having just had some new parts delivered, I'm meant to doing some illustration work at home today, but the first thing I did this morning when I saw it was nice and sunny outside was to go and get my bike out of the shed. It was instinctive. Suns out, bike out.

Chances of me getting too much work done before succumbing to the obvious temptation? Hmmmmmm.....

😀

Had a rubbish day Monday - car problems, traIn problems, work problems - absolutely pissed off with the world.

Swept a group on the councils health ride in the evening, just fast enough to feel like a proper workout, a few dry patches appearing on the trails at last, great company, and a close encounter with a barn owl who watched the group go past from his/her fence post then glided silently away as I got nearer.

Properly good ride for the body and soul.

The 'bog of doom' on my commute is just about rideable on fat MTB slicks this week - been impossible for months. Smell of a cut lawn this morning, as I walked into the office.

I’ve recently adopted the ‘Did I have fun riding my bike today?’ as a simple metric for measuring how good a ride was. I found I was getting all antsy pre-ride, worrying about whether I’d be gnarly/fast/rad enough, which seems silly given we’re just grown up kids playing in the woods. It’s worked a treat, and taken the pressure off completely. It’s also made me focus on those aspects of riding that truly do bring joy, be it nailing a move you didn’t think you could, laughing your head off with a mate, or just watching a beautiful sunset from the saddle. Any bike ride could be your last, for whatever reason. Make sure it’s a joyous one.

So far this year I've mostly been drier and warmer by going dinghy sailing.

I am looking forward to a cycling holiday in Holland at Easter if I ever manage to finish booking somewhere to stay, the trails drying out and maybe a trip to BPW with my son's on a suitable inset day.

Riding bikes is ace, but I'm old enough to know when the filth and wet has crossed a line into "just riding for the sake of it" and to turn that into doing something less grim instead.

Riding bikes is ace, but I’m old enough to know when the filth and wet has crossed a line into “just riding for the sake of it” and to turn that into doing something less grim instead.

I've found that an ebike and a drysuit changes all this. Many times this winter when I'd have never dragged myself out on a normal bike, but have been out and had a fab ride on the eeb. Boots and suit off in the shed after, walk into the house clean. Game changer

A big part of it for me I think is simply the freedom and release of being out on my own away from everything.

Just to stop on a hillside somewhere and to know that no one else in the world knows exactly where you are right now is somehow exhilarating.

Work, phone, family, pretty much any responsibility or obligations that normally tie you down in any way, whether good or bad, have just gone - out of existence.

That, combined with my general love of being outdoors in nature is just the best feeling.

...aaargh, it's been too long.