"What made you decide to do that?"

[Tourist Tony]

Oh, in case anyone here doesn't know,
"My name is Tony. I am a cycle tourist"

[kyuss]

We are just doing what people have always done, but forgotten they could.

Exactly.

[David Martin]

There is a really great route from Pen-y-Pass up Snowdon that is pretty, quiet and secluded, even on a summer bank holiday. Not many people know it. I like it that way.

By Clogwyn y Person?

Don't think so, but close. Follow the PyG track a bit then turn left onto an unmarked path over a small bluff. Drop to a small cairn. The path is now visible, a few meters at a time, as you traverse into Cwm Glas. Past Llyn Bach via the vienetta rock and the bonsai trees. Up the gully at the back to the summit of Garnedd Ugain.

..d   

[Jon P]

LOL, at least they didn't say "Why did you want to go and do that?"  Or "You didn't really want to do that, did you?"

[Tourist Tony]

There is a really great route from Pen-y-Pass up Snowdon that is pretty, quiet and secluded, even on a summer bank holiday. Not many people know it. I like it that way.

By Clogwyn y Person?

Don't think so, but close. Follow the PyG track a bit then turn left onto an unmarked path over a small bluff. Drop to a small cairn. The path is now visible, a few meters at a time, as you traverse into Cwm Glas. Past Llyn Bach via the vienetta rock and the bonsai trees. Up the gully at the back to the summit of Garnedd Ugain.

..d   

Cwm y Beudy Mawr,  I think. But I never noticed any meters there, even though PyP is a bugger for parking.
And the pic in question, one Zen Road:

[Rich753]

Couple of classic answers to "why did you climb that mountain?" ...

"Because it's there", or (my favourite)
"if you have to ask the question then you wouldn't understand the answer"

[Raph]

I once got a load of PC abuse from a girlfriend and three of her mates - going up mountains or cycling a long way was, according to them, "a very male, macho thing", a sort of "urge to conquer" etc...

I mentioned that the most extreme climbing people I know (and I mean dangling off unfeasibly high cliffs and overhanging rocks), are mostly women for some reason, and listed some of the feats my (female) other half has done - and the bit that really pissed them off, since they were getting all sexist about it, was to point out that on the continent I see as many women up mountains as men and it seems to be only English middle-class women (i.e. implying the three of them) that are too gutless. I was being totally facetious of course, I have absolutely no such attitude and three or four namby-pamby individuals in North London don't represent womankind, also I have nothing against couch potatoes - but as they were trying so hard to piss me off for a laugh, on a sort of "we speak for all women" basis, all I could do was respond in kind and stick up for womankind excluding them - and the atmosphere went fairly quiet fairly quick!

[Salvatore]

I came across this passage in the introduction to Graham Robb's excellent 'The Discovery of France'.

I owed my first real inklings of this other France to a rediscovery of the miraculous machine that opened up the country to millions of people at the end of the nineteenth century. Once or twice a year, I travelled through France with the dedicatee of this book at the speed of a nineteenth-century stagecoach. Cycling not only makes it possible to conduct exhaustive research into local produce, it also creates an enormous appetite for information. Certain configurations of field, road, weather and smell imprint themselves on the cycling brain with inexplicable clarity and return sometimes years later to pose their nebulous questions. A bicycle unrolls a 360-degree panorama of the land, allows the rider to register its gradual changes in gear ratios and muscle tension, and makes it hard to miss a single inch of it, from the tyre-lacerating suburbs of Paris to the Mistral-blasted plains of Provence. The itinerary of a cyclist recreates, as if by chance, much older journeys: transhumance trails, Gallo-Roman trade routes, pilgrim paths, river confluences that have disappeared in industrial wasteland, valleys and ridge roads that used to be busy with pedlars and migrants. Cycling also makes conversation easy and inevitable -with children, nomads, people who are lost, local amateur historians and, of course, dogs, whose behaviour collectively characterizes the outlook of certain regions as clearly as human behaviour once did.

[Bledlow]

I am on my own.
REALLY on my own, sometimes.

and

The pace I travel at is a human speed, and I am in the world not passing it by.

Those two things are the main ones for me.

+1. Especially the highlighted line, which seems to encapsulate the essence of the passage above from Graham Robb, in far fewer words.

On my own is a "sometimes" thing with me.

[gordon taylor]

[
And the pic in question, one Zen Road:

AIEEEEE! I knew you'd do that, you bugger.
My goosebumps are aflame.
I must go to work tomorrow.
I must go to work tomorrow.
I must go to work tomorrow.


 

[Tourist Tony]

Forgive me Clare......
I was out with Clare, Vern, Spesh and Hummers last night, and Clare clarified her OP. It was a loooooong chat. The point was more that the initial question was "what MADE you do it?" , in the sense that such an activity must be, somehow, forced....
We have all offered our suggestions as to why we do it. They are all valid.
But how do you tell what an SF fan would call a 'dane, a non-fan, that it isn't a visitation from above, that it is not a Blues-Brothers-Belushi-in-the-Beam revelation, but just bloody NORMAL?

Offering the reasons we have wrtten about is fine. Explaining that there is no arm-twisting or electro-convulsive therapy to make us think like this is far harder.

[teethgrinder]

Forgive me Clare......
I was out with Clare, Vern, Speah and Hummers last night, and Clare clarified her OP. It was a loooooong chat. The point was more that the initial question was "what MADE you do it?" , in the sense that such an activity must be, somehow, forced....We have all offered our suggestions as to why we do it. They are all valid.
But how do you tell what an SF fan would call a 'dane, a non-fan, that it isn't a visitation from above, that it is not a Blues-Brothers-Belushi-in-the-Beam revelation, but just bloody NORMAL?

Offering the reasons we have wrtten about is fine. Explaining that there is no arm-twisting or electro-convulsive therapy to make us think like this is far harder.

I remember someone where I used to work boasting because he could drive the 17 miles home faster than I could cycle the 17 miles home (We both travelled the same distance)
I asked him what the rush was and told him that as soon as I am on my bike, I am exactly where I want to be and that only takes a minute or so from when I finish work. I told him that I sometimes have to go a long way home because I enjoy myself so much. I even let slip that I did a 100 mile ride home because I was enjoying it so much. Then I asked him if he ever went a long way home for enjoyment.
He didn't. So I told him that it must be horrible spending all that time not enjoying himself.

[Jaded]

TG, that's excellent!

[tonycollinet]

I say the same - only shorter

"as soon as I step out of the office - it is playtime."

[Charlotte]

This thread is full of pure, unrefined, 24 carat WIN.

Hummers, TT and TG, you're all bang on the money.  Touring is pretty much the modern (and temporary) version of the nomadic lifestyle we all evolved to live.  When we're on the road and experiencing new things, even if this is half an hour's pedal from our own front doors, then we're doing what it is we're best at.

Traveling, learning, adapting to our conditions and overcoming challenges.

*wanderlust*

[Clare]

Forgive me Clare......
I was out with Clare, Vern, Speah and Hummers last night, and Clare clarified her OP. It was a loooooong chat. The point was more that the initial question was "what MADE you do it?" , in the sense that such an activity must be, somehow, forced....
We have all offered our suggestions as to why we do it. They are all valid.
But how do you tell what an SF fan would call a 'dane, a non-fan, that it isn't a visitation from above, that it is not a Blues-Brothers-Belushi-in-the-Beam revelation, but just bloody NORMAL?

Offering the reasons we have wrtten about is fine. Explaining that there is no arm-twisting or electro-convulsive therapy to make us think like this is far harder.

Bang on Tony, it was the "made" that completely stumped me; I did consider telling her it was a condition of bail but thankfully Corporal Sensible Braincell told the muscles to keep my mouth shut.

[Raph]

Maybe she's of a mentality that thinks you only do what you "have to", and if something is so astronomically strange as someone wanting to do something outside the normal sitting-on-the-sofa then there must be an unfathomable and mysterious reason behind it.

At least it sounds as though she's not being superior or condescending, which is nice. Some people can't cope with it and get almost nasty about it, e.g. examples I've mentioned above.

Each to their own!

[teethgrinder]

Maybe she's of a mentality that thinks you only do what you "have to", and if something is so astronomically strange as someone wanting to do something outside the normal sitting-on-the-sofa then there must be an unfathomable and mysterious reason behind it.

At least it sounds as though she's not being superior or condescending, which is nice. Some people can't cope with it and get almost nasty about it, e.g. examples I've mentioned above.

Each to their own!

I think that most people tend to be conformist and follow the crowd. When they see someone who does it their own way, they sometimes have trouble accepting it. Look atall the daft reasons that people suggest as to why people cycle instead of drive a car.

It's green.
For health and fitness reasons, such as getting fit or losing weight.
Can't afford a car/saving money.
They're a weirdo.

Never bacause we just enjoy it and prefer cycling to driving a car.
The other reasons are very good bonuses though. (especially being labelled a weirdo )

Cars are marketed and catred for very well. Ever since I was in primary school I was taught that cars are desirable and I must bow down to the motor car (such as when I was taught that I had to be carefull when crossing the road and it is my fault if I get hurt or killed doing so)
It's forced upon us all that driving a car is the way to travel and any other means is for unfortunates.

I developed a habbit of asking why I should do as everyone else does. At 17 I decided against taking driving lessons. I asked myself what I needed a car for. Work was 5 miles away. Where did I go that I couldn't get to on my bike. I could cycle 200 miles in a day. If I needed to go far, instead ofpaying a lot ofmoney for driving lessons, cars etc, I could just buy a train ticket and leave the driving to a professional while I did as I pleased. I could always learn to drive if I needed to. I still don't drive and have no intention of doing so. I also don't own a TV, refrigerator, mobile phone or freezer. This often surprises people who I expect, are all following the crowd and don't think for themselves. But saying that, we all do that to some degree. At least, I know that I do and expect that everyone does the same.

I could ask, "What makes people want to drive?" But I think that I may know the answer to that. I'm sure tht if I asked someone, they wouldn't come up with anything different to what I think, but perhaps with less observation on why. But some people do enjoy driving.

[Manotea]

I find audaxing incredibly empowering. The fact that you can be out travelling the countryside under your own power, visiting and experiencing places you would otherwise never see. Today I rode the Kennet Valley Run in great weather for the end of February. All my windproof kit was in the bag and I was wearing mitts, giving it as large as I could manage through the countryside. Whats not to like?

[David Martin]

On a similar vein, I ran into work today. I didn't take the direct route, instead I went over Dundee Law. Blue sky, bright spring sunshine, great views. Nobody *made* me do it. Yes I have ulterior motives (fitness and adding paths to OpenStreetMap) but those are secondary to dictating the why. Last night was moist and chilly, yet I still enjoyed my ride.

I know that if I had not run in today I would have regretted it. Just got a coffee to get to the bottom of now and think about some breakfast.

..d

[Wowbagger]

I find audaxing incredibly empowering. The fact that you can be out travelling the countryside under your own power, visiting and experiencing places you would otherwise never see. Today I rode the Kennet Valley Run in great weather for the end of February. All my windproof kit was in the bag and I was wearing mitts, giving it as large as I could manage through the countryside. Whats not to like?

Why does it have to be audaxing? To me, that still puts you in a box, as it were, doing the bidding of someone else. It's just the cycling that is empowering. Audax itself, although adding certain elements (I would never have ridden the WW route if it hadn't been for your facilitation - thanks!) can be disempowering. I was going to take part in the 'Uts series in a week's time but I can ride largely the same roads from home without either getting the car out or spending 5-6 hours on or waiting for trains, whilst at the same time making stops of my choosing (i.e. not getting in the queue at Winnersh Sainsbury's waiting for the hoi polloi to pay their saturday prole tax ). It was discussions with Peli which persuaded me to "do my own thing" instead.

[tonyh]

I know that if I had not run in today I would have regretted it.

I often need that kind of motivation, to get me through the "I really don't want to do this just now" stage (which is rather frighteningly common!)

[Wowbagger]

It's the flip side of "I'll be bloody glad when I've had enough of this!"

[Manotea]

I find audaxing incredibly empowering. The fact that you can be out travelling the countryside under your own power, visiting and experiencing places you would otherwise never see. Today I rode the Kennet Valley Run in great weather for the end of February. All my windproof kit was in the bag and I was wearing mitts, giving it as large as I could manage through the countryside. Whats not to like?

Why does it have to be audaxing? To me, that still puts you in a box, as it were, doing the bidding of someone else. It's just the cycling that is empowering. Audax itself, although adding certain elements (I would never have ridden the WW route if it hadn't been for your facilitation - thanks!) can be disempowering. I was going to take part in the 'Uts series in a week's time but I can ride largely the same roads from home without either getting the car out or spending 5-6 hours on or waiting for trains, whilst at the same time making stops of my choosing (i.e. not getting in the queue at Winnersh Sainsbury's waiting for the hoi polloi to pay their saturday prole tax ). It was discussions with Peli which persuaded me to "do my own thing" instead.

I was referring to Audax as a style of riding (fast touring) for which AUK gives me access to routes & events across the country and provide a structure and like minded company for my cycling. Living in west london, getting out into the country is a big time investment which (for me) is only really justified by a 100m+ outing, whilst riding under AUK rules for calendar, perm and DIY events encourages me to stay the course when the going gets tough. As you say, after a while it does seem a bit pointless driving or catching a train to get to cycling events so I ride out to events when I have the time. I have also become more selective on the rides I do and have laid down my own (DIY) routes I can ride from home and other parts of the country. So thats my situation. All power to the WARTY!

[Raph]

I used to live in London and I remember the fact that it was only worth going on a ride if I had most of a day free since it took 10+miles to get out of the Smoke into nice lanes. So almost all rides were at least 50 or not really worth it, the A1000 having lost its attraction when I was about 13.

"Just got a coffee to get to the bottom of now and think about some breakfast." - what made you get to the bottom of your coffee and think about breakfast? 

The inane-ness of the question is still causing me a headache. Getting into the mind of the person asking it is a challenge. I don't mean to put them down, but if you turn the tables - what makes one sit in front of the telly of an evening? Not that I'm assuming that's what she does, but it's usually couch potatoes that ask that kind of question.

I've finally been diagnosed with ME - doesn't mean I know yet what it is! - but at times I've been flopped out on the sofa totally deflated and lacking any energy whatsoever, yet I've been squirming with frustration at not getting out. I've sometimes wondered if that's what it's like for people that ask questions like "what made you do that?". Strange thing is, if I have managed to winch myself onto my bike I've always had a fantastic ride anyway, and loved all the hills as though there were nothing wrong with me - maybe that's true of couch potatoes, if they only try it once they'll discover their body laps it up. In practice some do, some don't. I've stopped trying to get people into cycling though - as I said, better to keep the secret of all those nice lanes to myself, avoid the stupid discussions about why I do it, and less rides spent waiting for mates and then taking abuse cos they then hate me cos I saw them get sweaty and not at their best.