Stationary therapy
Ruminations on bicycle riding and the pursuit of happiness

Last week, I rode my bike a bunch. Half of me told myself it was to train for upcoming rides, or the upcoming season, or upcoming races that are months away. The other half of me knew it was because my mind was a mess, and I had no other way to untangle the tense pressure that was stagnant behind my eyeballs. 

There was no singular reason why I spent my past few weeks living in fight or flight, but rather many small reasons. I was feeling defensive at the lack of circumstantial and emotional reprieve, and by the time I met my friend at a neighborhood brewery one evening, I cried. I cried at her, beer in hand, for no particular reason, just all the small reasons.

To forget about my public brewery blubbers, and to make myself feel better, I rode my bike a bunch. I rode it the next day and then the day after, and the day after that. 

I rode my bike for hours on end, mostly on my indoor bike, because it was winter, and also because I could be in whatever emotional state I wanted to be while safe inside my home. I could yell, cry, sweat, huff, puff, say all the bad words, and it didn’t matter, because the only people around were the digital bicycle racers on the Zwift screen in front of me. They wouldn’t notice the tears or care that there wasn’t much to blame them on. They wouldn’t care that it was just a bunch of small regular life stuff that added up over time. They wouldn’t wonder why, when they added up, it came out in tears in my beers. 

So I rode, and I was right. They didn’t notice, and they didn’t care. They didn’t wonder what was wrong or ask if they could help or listen, or anything else that might make me feel better. These digital cyclists in my living room cared about KOMs and closing the gaps and RPMs, and that’s great, because that is all I wanted to care about too. But I also cared about all the little things. 

The first time I met my new therapist, she asked me.

“Do you have any activities you enjoy doing?” 

I told her I enjoy riding my bike, a lot. She told me that was great, took me under her wing, and we made our first official appointment. 

I rode my bike every day until then, and while I rode, or ate dinner, or laid in bed at night and in the morning, I also thought about life. I thought about all the regular life stuff like deadlines, dirty dishes and relationships. Then I rode my bike and felt better. Then I’d go to work or go grocery shopping. I’d have meetings, exchange emails, see a friend and walk my dog. I’d scroll through social media, and then I’d sit down to drink a beer with a friend, or just think about life again. Or I would read a line in a book and cry about something minor, so I’d ride my bike again and feel better. 

It went on like that for a week, and after the seven days passed, I met with my therapist again. I told her about all the little things in my life, and contrary to my bike or those digital Zwift guys, she looked me in the eyes and listened. She spoke back to me, gave me advice and unraveled some of the little things. She suggested conclusions that I never would have thought of on my own, and she said them in a way that didn’t make feeling good temporary, but rather made me change my perspective as a whole. 

She was a concrete, actionable person  giving me a soft place to land and a different way to approach life’s little things. 

When I told her about how I’d been riding my bike for hours on end, day after day, she told me that was great. That I, and we all, should be riding our bikes or going skiing, running, yoga or whatever else we Durango folk want to do. We should do these things, because we love to do them, and they make us happy. They shouldn’t, however, be what we rely on to make us happy.

Our bicycles shouldn’t be our therapists. The outdoors is a flimsy trusted resource at best, and yeah, it makes us feel great – amazing actually – but once you clock back in, stand face-to-face with that relationship or stare at the dirty dishes while your phone is ringing, there isn’t a lot to hold you up.

Going outside and riding bikes – or riding in our living rooms during the winter – makes us happy, because it is fun (and endorphins, etc.). Doing what we love should be fun. It should not, however, be the tool to get us through long weeks of meetings, email exchanges, weird conversations, broken hearts, anxious thoughts, defeating dialogue, unstable foundations or crying in our beers with our friends. ?