A friend, let’s call her Ruth, is having some life issues. Ruth is one of my early bike mentors and rides a lot. But she hasn’t ridden lately aside from going to work and back. She wrote:
Meanwhile, I am feeling defeated in my efforts to ride more often for pleasure. My work schedule is picking up … [description of efforts to find a new job] … I’d prefer not to be a … but at some point I may have to swallow my pride and just take whatever I can.
It leaves me with little time or energy to do much riding other than commuting, which bums me out. What do you do when you find yourself in this kind of place?
To be on the receiving end of this question is a bit ironic, considering how little I’ve ridden in the last couple of months. My reply went something like this.
Oh, you mean like since mid-January? In February and March I rode – including commuting – only five or six times. With my Mom’s 70th birthday, the trip to Bali and a software project that I took on I let myself just not ride. Now it’s affected my riding plans becasue I’ve lost stamina and conditioning. So what do I do?
Review my priorities. It’s 6:00am, am I getting ready to ride to spending time on something else so that in an hour I’ll “have” to drive? Time is always there, it was there yesterday afternoon around 4:00 when the driving rains quit and the sun broke through clouds I looked out the window at the wonderful afternoon and kept reading. It’s here right now when everything is ready except for me. I’m blowing my nose (a cold with me since last Thursday) and feeling apprehensive, how will a ride to work go? What’s more important? Writing some bit of software? Updating a web page? Riding? Which can I do later?
So what do I do when the energy levels and time don’t seem to support riding?
I lie to myself. I’m only going to go for a little ride, like a mile or so. I’ll take the stuff to go to work with, but I’m just going to ride up to 52nd or so and then turn around and come back. Then I can drive in, change at work, and get on with the day. That’s one way to get to ride. A simple lie about intent. A simple lie that overcomes the inertia to not ride with such a small intent, “only a few blocks,” that the perceived lack of time and energy aren’t an obstacle.
Maybe, just maybe, at 52nd, a half mile from home, I’ll decide to go a couple more blocks. We’ll find out.
I do the same thing for fun, weekend rides. The rule to ride by is: never decide to ride or not until you’re five blocks from the house on the bike. For people who ride in street clothes this can be easier, just grab the bike and go out the door ignorning the “I’m tired, I’ve no time, I’m whatever” reasons until the first corner. Then it’s time to decide on the next block. After four or five blocks you can make a real decision about riding. And yes, on a couple of occasions I’ve gotten four or five or nine blocks away and turned around and come home.
But for now it’s just past 6:30 and for the last hour and a half I’ve not gotten on the bike to ride to work and if it’s going to happen it’s got to happen and I need to step away from the computer and choose to ride. I know there are some mis-spellings up there someplace but it’s time to leave this piece be and ride. If I’m going to ride at all.
Update: So what happened? Did I leave the computer? It was closing in on 7:00. Ostensibly, I should be at work just after 7:00, if not before. A month ago in this position I said “got to be on time” and drove. Especially when I looked out the window and saw a thermometer at 36° (2°C). “ooh, it’s cold and I’m congested and not really over the cold and …” No! Not today, not today am I going to list all the reasons not to ride. Today I ride. Ride the fixed gear. It took six blocks to get in the groove. Just six blocks to go from “aw, ride? am I sure?” to “oh boy, I get to ride.” It was a great decongestent, I haven’t breathed this clearly since last Wednesday.
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