Sometimes You Ask Why

This past Sunday morning, I went out and did my longest ride to date--51 miles in Prospect Park (I lacked the patience to drive anywhere more scenic when I got out of bed that day)--although that’s not really what I wanted to talk about today. If I did, if I took you through the details of my ride, you’d probably find yourself incredibly bored by the second or third paragraph, and who needs that in their life?

I could also discuss the 40 miles I did on Staten Island the Sunday before, the ride that took me up and over Todt Hill, up Howard Avenue near Wagner College, back up the service road, and then up the backside of Todt Hill. Finished with the climbing, I went and did another 20 miles in Gateway National Park, which was a pleasure considering it’s completely flat.

See how quickly that gets tired? Do I feel like reading about all the minute details of everyone else’s Sunday ride? Not really. Sure, that probably makes me sound like something of a dick, but let’s be honest. How much different is my ride from yours? Probably not much, right? With that said, I wanted to talk about what I’ve found in riding and why I continue to ride.

That’s a big question for all of us on bicycles, isn’t it? Whether it’s on the road or off the road, why do we keep doing it? Why punish ourselves the way we do? Why cause our lungs and legs to burn for hours at a time? Why set the alarm for seven in the morning just so I can strap on a pair of tight shorts--shorts I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing off the bike--and proceed to practically crucify myself for the next 2-4 hours?

Now, I believe the truth in this matter is that the answer is probably different for everybody, although perhaps there’s a common thread that snakes through the entire cycling community. Speaking for myself, the answers have sort of crystallized during the past few weeks.

First, I do it because I have this selfish desire to become both fast and powerful on a bicycle. I do it so I can average 24 miles-per-hour in Central Park rather than the measly 18-19 I’ve been doing so far. I do it so no one ever passes me when I’m riding the loop through Prospect Park. I do it so I might win a race.

More importantly, I continue to ride because I’ve come to realize that the pain of pushing myself progressively harder and harder every week helps fix all the other pain that comes from the rest of life. In the movie Fight Club, Jack states: “After fighting, everything else in life got the volume turned down,” and that’s sort of how it is with cycling. This past week, I had some of the worst days and nights I’ve had in a long, long time and if it wasn’t for my bike, they probably would have been a lot worse than they turned out to be. I probably would have ended up a lot drunker than I did, yet somehow, the pain of biking up a mountain or a big hill helps ease the pain associated with everything else in life, just like Jack said. Somehow, it seems to make everything else all right. Don’t ask me why because I don’t know why. It just works, at least for me.

And that’s all I have to say about that.