Riding without a reason
Cycling purely for the sake of riding a bike clears my mind and leaves me ready to face whatever life has in store (after a nice sit-down).
Life has been busy lately. And when it is, I tend to feel that riding a bike needs an added purpose. I ride to the swimming pool to work on my fitness. I ride to town to do my errands. I ride to take some photos, because I’ve been neglecting my hobby.
Amidst the frantic multitasking, I rarely ride for the sake of riding – just to feel my legs push the wheels round, the click of the freehub and the air rushing past. But I should, because I’ve found nothing better for quietening a busy mind; each turn of the cranks dimming the cocophany of thoughts.
I touched on this in a previous post about riding in the forest, but it’s something I wanted to explore in more detail. In that post I quoted Dutch author Tim Krabbé from his book about cycle racing, The Rider. The quote is worth repeating here: