I think that the carnivores like bicycling because it builds itself into their own love of consumption. For a carnivore to look at a bicyclist, especially a road bicyclist, there’s the opportunity to see the opportunity to claim vast expenses of time and distance for one’s self. The ultimate freedom. You are away from the office. Now you can fly and your body is alive!
As a bicyclist with a worthy pedigree, I would say that my time spent doing distances on the road we’re mostly purposeless. They were minor assault plans. I will claim this particular loop of territory for myself. For the people who do online motivation, I will try for this k o m, my king of the mountain. But inevitably it is all just preparatory games. They are games and games are fun. If you are a sportsman and you have an opportunity to play a game, bicycling is excellent game and you don’t even need a team. Just a bicycle. Bring a clock and a computer and some competitors and you have everything you need.
What I loved best were purposeful rides. When I rode bike messenger in Manhattan, this was excellent riding. It was interesting bicycling because of the urban terrors but it was also interesting bicycling because you had absolute goals. I was into the process deeply so I didn’t really worry so much about the clock. Sure, if someone hands you a triple rush, you will ride a little faster. But we can’t be professionals and seek Carnage even if we are doing a remarkably dangerous thing to do. It’s not really safe riding bicycles in automobile traffic in New York. It’s very dangerous riding with cars.
I think this was really clear for myself in private life. I’m talking about life not as a professional bicyclist. I think the most interesting rides and the ones that I respected the most were the ones where there was a definite place to go. If I wanted to do some shopping, my bicycle was my vehicle. My limit was what would fit in my bicycle bag. I would buy enough groceries to film my bag and then I would get on my bike and return it to my house. Excellent rides. All kinds of technology went into that as well. Baskets that could be mounted on the handlebars etc. Should we also carry pan years and a rear rack with a box? Can you do it in the snow? Yes, yes and yes.
Which is not to say that there isn’t an inherent thrill that goes along with bicycling. Bicycling is a thrill. Of course, you could go professional like I did and do bicycling to the limits of your capacity. And of course if you do this, you’re going to be a little jaded for the small things. Anything you do professionally is going to separate you from the amateurs once and for all. True for baseball players. True for fighters. True for girlfriends honestly. If you get up on a bike, there is a possibility of falling. Even if you have fallen a hundred times, you don’t want to fall. You may not be deathly afraid of it but this does not mean you welcome the opportunity for a crash. I never rode my bike in the hopes of a crash. I always aimed for the space between the cars.
It is quite fun to have a bike ride there in the middle of your day. It really does get to be something to look forward to. Some of my later rides were more like military missions. I didn’t really want to be on the track one minute longer than I needed to be there but I was glad to be able to do the work myself. More of a urban skills challenge than anything else. But when I was in the apartment, I did quite a bit of writing just for the sake of riding. I would go run loops at the athletic Center just for the workout. The street riding to get there of course was an opportunity to play. Sure, bicycling is fun. It’s nice to have a bike ride there for yourself somewhere in the middle of your day.
But there is something greatly to be said for the urban dweller who chooses the way of the wheel. You do not need to think very hard about what the meaning of my words are. I have made it clear that I ride a fixed gear bike. I have made it clear that this also means something to your physical body when riding. It’s a different type of connection than for mechanical riders. I’m just saying that if I can put my body into the motor that gets me to the market and back with something to eat, I think this is an ecological plus of a giant nature. If 80% of the joy that you get comes from the image of yourself pushing a bicycle, I guess I can live with that for a start. Just don’t crash. People who crash are the ones who look at themselves instead of the road. Don’t race.
I mean you can. We can have bicycle races. Bicycle races are fun. But bicycle races are dangerous and expensive. We can have bicycle races if we have people who are interested in either racing or watching racing. We can have midnight rides. We can exploit the grid and infrastructure of the town as our own track and make our own race and see who is the fastest and who is the craziest and who is the smartest and who is the most professional. Of course we can do this. If there’s no one to harm but yourself and you believe you need this, we can do this. I’ve done this. I’ve done this professionally.
I think maybe that the real answer is that being a bicyclist does not need to mean anything except the choice to ride a bicycle instead of driving a car. It’s a big choice. It’s like becoming a gardener for the first time when you don’t really know anything about anything. There’s a lot to learn and the whole thing can be daunting. But there is no reason to be daunted. The only thing you need to do is make the decision. Crazy yes or crazy no but you make the decision that you don’t want to drive a car in a city anymore. You make the decision that you’re going to choose different transportation. Maybe you can take a public taxi cab if you think this actually makes it better. It does in terms of personal liability. It’s a much better percentage if you stick to public transportation. Or you can walk or run or bicycle. I think they have e-bikes also. That’s all I’m talking about.
At this point we’re not really arguing about anything. We can do the experiment and find out how much money you lose and how much you gain. We find out if you enjoy the changes to your business or whether they are catastrophic. We find out if any new ideas have come up along the way about how to live well in the world. There is a lot of things to explore as we take on this rather permanent experiment. Nobody said this was for a month. The point is that you understand that you don’t want to be in a private automobile unnecessarily anymore because you want a clean environment to live in. Hence the bicycling.
So for final advice. You just get on it and stay on it. The problem is your existence as a body. If you don’t really see your body as a part of your existence, and this is especially true if you make your money on your ass or by talking to people, you might not be aware of the joys of simply using your own body to do tasks. Instead of using a motor, use your own body to get yourself where you need to go. The thing is that this is the only change you have to make but it is going to change your life. It’s also going to hurt a little bit if you are genuinely coming in cold. For the absolute beginner, if you have the capacity to ride a bicycle, get up on the saddle and put your feet on the pedals and do something for 45 minutes without stopping. It doesn’t matter where you go or how fast. Within 4 days your body is going to start asking you to be purposeful with your time. Your body is going to be used to running for 45 minutes. You’re probably going to start thinking of how to more purposefully use this time like maybe a 45-minute trip to the market to get some food.
There’s no magic to it. You just get better at anything you practice.
Who was I the day I threw away my last car? A free man. I was free from the economic drain and I was also free of any more guilt regarding use of an internal combustion engine for non-essential purposes. Not to say that I wasn’t guilty. I am from the same world as everyone. It was only to say that from this moment for it, I would be the motor. My body would get me where I needed to go and would allow me to do what I needed to do. I took personal responsibility for my transportation.
And now the opportunity is here for you to do the same. Not the debate, just the agreement. I’m not going to own a car anymore. No matter what, no matter the cost or the extra effort needed to make things go, I will not own a car anymore. And if I need to go somewhere, I can take a bike.
I’m 35 years of public transportation and bicycles. I dabble in taxicabs because my life has become somewhat specialized. I keep my deliveries to a minimum and always order in bulk. I’m a bicyclist. I understand what I’m doing.
Update
The idea of keeping a habit of doing meditative bicycling on a daily basis is a fine one. The idea of a perfect hour of exercise should be in the mind. It’s lovely actually if you have more than one hour to do a workout. I am in love with the one hour record. I think it is the perfect aspiration for everybody and especially bikers.
It’s not a matter of rules or how to do it. It’s just a matter of being on a stationary bike and keeping the pedals turning. I use different interval timers. Sometimes I will just run for the hour. This is the most pure in an imitation of real gravity riding. But sometimes I will go at a good fast pace for some period of minutes and then rest and then go again. But I have done this unilaterally and without not doing it and you might be interested in the results. What do you think happened? My body got harder.
More effortless movement. Greater heart capacity. Sharper eyesight really. I am prone to laziness and I have a genuine life capacity to do things that is a bit more limited than it was a million years ago. But I am on the place as they say for the job. I’m sharper and faster. There is less drama. I don’t get too caught up in weird thoughts. I have a more direct connection between my desire or need to do something and my body’s willingness to do it.
There is another side benefit to all of this. If you are prone to making hysterical or emotional decisions, you can use this meditation as a way of calming yourself down. I think the physical fitness makes me a faster person but at the same time, it allows me to be a strong enough person to double think bad ideas. Actually, I don’t really feel bad about questioning all of my ideas and almost never burst into action because the thought came into my head. I am not motivated by scary thoughts or opportunistic thoughts. I don’t ignore them like people seem to do. I don’t just ignore life. I just refuse to get excited about it. I prefer to think it through first and make sure it is something I genuinely want to do. I’m sure this has saved my life once or twice in the road to here.
And what is more interesting is that the nuances of those first rides or even the first ride that were noticeable are now pretty much gone. My legs just do this now and they don’t require a lot of attention because there’s not a lot of pain management. My legs are pretty happy doing all this rotation. The rest of my body adjusts to this movement and like I said, the more you do this, the more alive you are.
