Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Rides and Touring => Topic started by: Clare on 22 February, 2009, 05:40:11 pm
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I was telling a colleague about our journey across the USA, NZ, Aus and Japan at work today; then I told her about our plans for another tour, probably USA, Japan, S.E. Asia, China, Central Asia and Europe. Her response was to look completely bemused and then say "What made you decide to do that?"
I have to admit I was flummoxed, nothing made me decide anything, I just wanted to do it and so did Vernon. In the end I told her I was sorry but I couldn't give her an answer.
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The voices in my head told me to do it! :demon:
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Anyone not interested in cycling simply does not understand the attraction:but an inability on my part to explain it does nothing to enlighten the disbelievers.
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When she's next telling you about her package trip to Costa del Englando ask her the same question. ;)
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She also asked me if Vern minded me working on Sundays :o ???.
I told her it was none of his business.
;D
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When people ask me that kind of thing I get a bit prone to treating them like the idiots they're pretending to be. "Couldn't you have gone by car?" - honestly what a numpty question but i get it quite often. I end up with the attitude "do it and find out for yourself cos you sure ain't gonna understand from me trying to explain it".
Going up mountains is a similar thing - "can't you sit in the hotel and just look at the mountains rather than trek up them with a tent?"
I end up regarding even dear friends as idiots when that kind of stuff comes out. What's the point of getting out of your armchair at all for that matter? If life's about getting around and experiencing things then i don't get what it is that someone wouldn't get about you going round the world experiencing some.
She also asked me if Vern minded me working on Sundays :o ???.
I told her it was none of his business.
;D
Not being rude about yer mate but I think that goes with the territory.
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There's one person at work who wasn't quite sure why I'd want to cycle down a lump of America for fun. She started with "gosh, that sounds like quite hard work" and moved on to "couldn't you hire a car?" and "will you get to relax though?"
I told her (as a joke) that obviously what we'd wanted to do was spend a couple of weeks in Tenerife drinking and shagging, but when we tried to book, the beaches were full.
But she didn't get that it was meant as a joke, and said quite seriously "I didn't know beaches could get full..."
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;D
I've given up trying to be witty to people about this kind of stuff, I did once try telling somebody that we would have driven a car around the world but that we weren't allowed to take it into France, so couldn't start the journey. Unfortunately they thought I was being serious and proceeded to tell everybody who would listen how dumb I was, it took a while to clear up the ensuing mental mess.
::-)
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I was telling a colleague about our journey across the USA, NZ, Aus and Japan at work today; then I told her about our plans for another tour, probably USA, Japan, S.E. Asia, China, Central Asia and Europe. Her response was to look completely bemused and then say "What made you decide to do that?"
There is no reasoning with someone who 'doesn't get' something, anything, like that sort of tour.
Touring is like nothing else: you have half an idea what to expect but the stories you tell later will be about the things you didn't expect - good and bad. The memories will be about the vistas that took your breath away, the people you never throught you'd meet, the events that pushed you to your limits and the moments you never wanted to end.
That'll be why touring is so compulsive.
H
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There is no reasoning with someone who 'doesn't get' something, anything, like that sort of tour.
Touring is like nothing else: you have half an idea what to expect but the stories you tell later will be about the things you didn't expect - good and bad. The memories will be about the vistas that took your breath away, the people you never throught you'd meet, the events that pushed you to your limits and the moments you never wanted to end.
That'll be why touring is so compulsive.
H
That is so true, even now we'll see a photo come up as a screen saver and start an hour long discussion of "Oooh, do you remember when..."
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"I've given up trying to be witty to people about this kind of stuff" - same here. I usually end up insulting people - it's less tedious than going away leaving them thinking the usual "you're mad you are!". I say - yeah I suppose it would be "hard work" for you, being the unfit weakling tub of blubber that you are... I work on the notion that it's only unthinkable for normal mortals cos they're pathetic. The fact that I'm by no means a greek god myself kind of introduces a bit of mystery into the matter, and has on a few occasions got people into trekking or cycling just out of curiosity and once they've done it once they never slag it off again - even if they don't get into it. It either defeats them so badly their soul is scarred for ever, or they embrace it and realize that the human body is actually strangely capable of propelling itself - and was indeed designed to.
My other half was exactly one of those "you're mad you are" types when I first met her - strange that we got together really, but on her first ever ride that I persuaded her on she had an over-the-handlebars incident, cracked her shoulder, was off cello playing for a month... and was hooked on cycling and has been into it ever since. In one ride she went from not understanding why a person would ride a couple of miles to a pub to riding 150 mile stints and seeing them as exhilarating, despite the first ever ride involving a crash - now that... is a turn-on! Sorry, didn't mean to eulogize about my bint on here, but just pointing out that a person can "see the light".
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Sorry, me again - it's a topic close to my heart! Another phenomenon is people who think you're doing it to prove something - e.g. one summer we tried to do the Pyrenees end-to-end, but it rained every single day for a month - we'd set aside six weeks but after four we'd only done a third of the distance, mostly sloshing about day after day in mud in the mist - and the weather didn't seem to be letting up so we came home and did rides for the last two weeks. Several mates said "bad luck, shame you didn't make it", which I found strange - to me it was a shame we went all the way to Pyrenees to do a trek that might as well have been an average Welsh summer. The "achievement" part of it is the only bit you can convey to people that don't understand - they think you're putting yourself through hell for some kind of proof of how macho you can be, not realizing what a superb laugh it can be.
There's also a slightly "stamp-collecting" mentality about it - I've done nearly all of the GR10 in the Pyrenees, but the outer ends are simply boring - I've done the Biarritz end and that was like Wales except not as nice, and on that basis I've never bothered with the Perpignan end of it - it's just endlessly flat and boring. The general perception is that if you haven't done "the whole thing" - like collecting a whole set of stickers from yer cornflake packets, then somehow it's worthless. Trying to tell someone that the good bits are in the middle is a waste of time. They just want to hear statistics - whereas the most impressive statistics are usually on the most boring bits - e.g. I rode back from Paris in a day - it wasn't actually a particularly interesting ride, but non-cycling mates can relate to that.
I'll stop now!
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I have to admit I was flummoxed, nothing made me decide anything, I just wanted to do it and so did Vernon. In the end I told her I was sorry but I couldn't give her an answer.
Ask her whether she breathes, eats, or whether she's heard of "fun".
Strangely enough, apart from the very simple fact that I like the experience of getting about on a bike or on foot with a rucksack, as an atheist I think of really big treks as a sort of confrontation against futility - e.g. there isn't a meaning of life unless you make one up yourself, and boy when you do, there really is a meaning of life but it can't necessarily be conveyed in a few words to someone who isn't on that wavelength - and yet I can understand a religious person doing it as a sort of personal pilgrimage. Ultimately the two are probably quite similar in a way. Sorry, I promised to shut up...
Anyway, that outburst might make pseud's corner ya never know. ;D
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I refer the OP to her inspiring post of Dec 31st last:
At some point somebody will ask what my resolutions are and I will reply that I intend to be be less understanding and more direct in my responses to idiots.
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Ah, good point Tom :-[
At least I didn't hit her ;)
Thing is I do know why I do it, it's because it's fun and the best way there is to see the world, the problem is conveying that to somebody who thinks it will be a huge chore. I'll leave them our blog address, a couple of months of that should bore them into submission ;D.
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Actually I think Raph has hit the nail on the head with his posts, there are many reasons why anybody does this kind of thing; all of them valid and most of them personal.
:)
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I was telling a colleague about our journey across the USA, NZ, Aus and Japan at work today; then I told her about our plans for another tour, probably USA, Japan, S.E. Asia, China, Central Asia and Europe. Her response was to look completely bemused and then say "What made you decide to do that?"
I have to admit I was flummoxed, nothing made me decide anything, I just wanted to do it and so did Vernon. In the end I told her I was sorry but I couldn't give her an answer.
I guess she's never been to Portsmouth then.
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Sorry, didn't mean to eulogize about my bint on here
And they say romance is dead.............. ;)
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Sorry, didn't mean to eulogize about my bint on here
And they say romance is dead.............. ;)
Yeah well you see, that's romance for me - I'm not generally attracted to the usual vacuous hairspray advert that thinks him/herself superior cos they wouldn't be seen dead on two wheels or in hefty boots - as a teenager I remember I once fancied this girl who blabbed on about how she'd been to Africa on photography trips etc... the ultimate independant woman, feminist (note this is 30 years ago) therefore interesting but not extreme enough to be a bore (or irrelevant to a horny teenage boy!)... anyway, she said she'd done some cycling, so as you can imagine I was squirming with desire. So I lent her a bike, we were supposedly going swimming...
This is the awful bit, I can hardly bear to recall it...
She said "oh no, it's got those funny handlebars" (drops) - my heart started to sink, and then she asked "what are those clip things on the pedals?"... eventually - "I can't ride this, I'll fall off" - and as my heart hit the bottom she said "can we take the bus?". From that point onwards I soooooo didn't fancy her, I personally despised every single molecule she was made of.
Mates saw pics of her and told me "she's pretty - Raph you're an idiot" - I thought they were the idiots. I said get a copy of Cosmo or whatever it is and gawp at some bimbos in there, and when you're bored with that, get off with a bird with some GUTS.
Oh dear I've done it again... but I don't think that was entirely off-topic, was it?
Clare - have a good time in "USA, Japan, S.E. Asia, China, Central Asia and Europe" - and I'm glad yer fella's up for it too! Send your colleague lots of postcards! :)
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I usually just shrug and go "yeah, why not" with a smile.
They already think I'm a bit daft, so no real harm done. And if they do respond with "becos' it's such hard work" or somesuch then you can say "oooh, have you ever tried it? you might really like it" and then(s)he is on the defensive, having to justify why they have a view on something they don't know about . Games, eh?
Better than "cos I wanted to see where the world ended", people think you're being sarcastic if you say that.
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I usually just shrug and go "yeah, why not" with a smile.
They already think I'm a bit daft, so no real harm done. And if they do respond with "becos' it's such hard work" or somesuch then you can say "oooh, have you ever tried it? you might really like it" and then(s)he is on the defensive, having to justify why they have a view on something they don't know about . Games, eh?
Better than "cos I wanted to see where the world ended", people think you're being sarcastic if you say that.
Well, you are being a bit sarcastic, and understandably so. Nobody is quite as daft as the one that sits on the sofa in front of the telly every single night because somehow they think it isn't "daft". I know a few people like that, and some of them are perfectly nice, just there's a strange mechanism in their ego that seems to tell them that anyone with an interest or a passion is a "nerd" - some of them have passions and interests of their own but somehow that doesn't come into it. It only bugs me when it's someone I like or care about, the rest of the time like Rich I just shrug it off - after all, too many of us going up mountains and it would get crowded so really I should shut up and keep the secret to myself.
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It only bugs me when it's someone I like or care about, the rest of the time like Rich I just shrug it off - after all, too many of us going up mountains and it would get crowded so really I should shut up and keep the secret to myself.
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.
Being fit and riding a cycle tour is an experience money can't buy. It is intensely personal, difficult to express and immensely fulfilling. And very hard to share with someone else.
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It only bugs me when it's someone I like or care about, the rest of the time like Rich I just shrug it off - after all, too many of us going up mountains and it would get crowded so really I should shut up and keep the secret to myself.
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.
Being fit and riding a cycle tour is an experience money can't buy. It is intensely personal, difficult to express and immensely fulfilling. And very hard to share with someone else.
By Clogwyn y Person?
Hummers summed it up for me earlier, but the question that I suffer least gladly is "You doin' it fer charidee?"
Those who tour do it for a mass of different reasons, but it does boil down to a core of commonality.
I am on my own.
REALLY on my own, sometimes.
The pace I travel at is a human speed, and I am in the world not passing it by.
I can spend several hours just putting silly thoughts into context.
I meet people. I spent this morning exchanging e-mails with a Victorian friend I met touring, who lost 21 neighbours in the fires there.
These people are often amazingly kind and generous, perhaps because a cyclist is perceptibly human.
If I do 1,000 miles, my colleagues gasp. That 1,000 is simply a series of days getting up and settling into a comfortable routine. As would be 2,000, or 20,000. You learn to take days as they come.
Other folk will have other reasons, but those who have stretched themselves just a little along the road will understand.
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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. If I knew what Zen was I'd probably mention it now.
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Which is why my wallpaper (and Gordy knows ths one) is a stretch of road in Australia I captioned "zen road"
We know why we do it. Does it matter if others don't? My ex-wife calls it "being amazing"
It isn't. We are just doing what people have always done, but forgotten they could.
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Oh, in case anyone here doesn't know,
"My name is Tony. I am a cycle tourist"
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We are just doing what people have always done, but forgotten they could.
Exactly.
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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
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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?"
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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:
(http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9476/278ez0.jpg)
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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"
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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!
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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.
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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.
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[
And the pic in question, one Zen Road:
(http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/9476/278ez0.jpg)
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.
:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
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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.
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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. ;D
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TG, that's excellent!
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I say the same - only shorter
"as soon as I step out of the office - it is playtime."
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This thread is full of pure, unrefined, 24 carat WIN. (http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/8845/legendarythreadlk3.jpg)
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*
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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.
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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!
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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 ;D)
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.
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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?
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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
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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.
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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!)
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It's the flip side of "I'll be bloody glad when I've had enough of this!"
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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!
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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.
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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*
Part of it is competence, the gradual honing of small skills, so that the packing is done semi-automatically, the machinery is kept in good repair, it builds confidence in our abilities and that is seen by those we meet.
It's a pleasure to meet people who are at the peak of their powers and have nothing to sell except their own goodwill, that pleasure reflects back and we feel happy about ourselves.
The danger is if we undertake these tasks to cope with unhappiness in our everyday lives. Might not people be asking what it is about our lives that we find so unsatisfactory, when they ask why we do these things.
Damon.
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Might not people be asking what it is about our lives that we find so unsatisfactory, when they ask why we do these things.
That thought has occurred to me in the past. There have definately been periods when the highlight of my working day was the ride to work, closely followed by the ride home! The joy of cycling is that it is a sport you can build into your everyday experience. But when it comes to longer trips, l've learned the hard way that to really enjoy the day you have to be riding with a clear concience with work and family squared away. You cannot cycle away from problems.
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[snip]
You cannot cycle away from problems.
It depends what the problems are, I've left one hell of a lot of mental junk from problems in my childhood at the roadside and also used the time on rides to work through current issues etc.
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Might not people be asking what it is about our lives that we find so unsatisfactory, when they ask why we do these things.
I don't have any major problems, just a few very minor material ones, which I could easily fix if i had the inclination. I just enjoy riding my bike. If I didn't cycle, I'd run or walk for miles.
I can't wait until I retire from workand can just go touring for as long as I like.
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It's the flip side of "I'll be bloody glad when I've had enough of this!"
What a great line ;D
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You cannot cycle away from problems.
You can't cycle away from a big council tax bill, but you definitely can cycle away from depression or a broken heart.
Sorry, didn't mean to get poetical. :)
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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!
That exactly sums up my approach to Audaxing, which has slightly morphed over the last 2 years, hence the ride up to Henham/Ugley last weekend. It was just a 3 hour ride to get up there; for the KVR I would have had to get up at the same time (4.45am) and sit on trains for 2 hours. I was also home by 7pm having done 250km instead of just 200km. I wouldn't have done that 250km if there wasn't 2 AUK points lurking at the end of it.
Trains and travelodges for more distant events aren't the ideal scenario but Wales is just too far away to do it any other way. It's only 90 minutes on the train to Bristol for me anyway.
That thought has occurred to me in the past. There have definately been periods when the highlight of my working day was the ride to work, closely followed by the ride home!
My boss asked me recently what I enjoyed most about my job. I jokingly replied "My commute" although I was actually being serious! I do like, and enjoy, my job, it's just that my commute is my favourite bit!
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Might not people be asking what it is about our lives that we find so unsatisfactory, when they ask why we do these things.
I don't have any major problems, just a few very minor material ones, which I could easily fix if i had the inclination. I just enjoy riding my bike. If I didn't cycle, I'd run or walk for miles.
I can't wait until I retire from workand can just go touring for as long as I like.
+Lots of thumbs ups.
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That thought has occurred to me in the past. There have definately been periods when the highlight of my working day was the ride to work, closely followed by the ride home!
My boss asked me recently what I enjoyed most about my job. I jokingly replied "My commute" although I was actually being serious! I do like, and enjoy, my job, it's just that my commute is my favourite bit!
:thumbsup: Same here, even though it's in that there london village, surrounded by motons. Work's just what fills the gap between commutes ;)
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I'm interested in this, as I think about what LEL is. It doesn't have to have any meaning, it simply is, as is a World Tour, we get so used to narratives, that we forget that a lot of the stories get smeared over the facts to make a book or a film. Having said that I wonder if there is some truth in a couple of lines I remembered from songs,
'Sometimes I get this crazy dream
That I just drive off in my car
But you can travel on ten thousand miles and still say where you are'
and
I pictured a rainbow
You held it in your hand
I had flashes
You saw the plan
I wandered out in the world for years
While you just stayed in your room
I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon
There are so many stories that we can paste over our experiences, and some of those stories will inspire others to emulate us.
But there is always something in most people's lives that holds them back. I think part of it is the fear of being an 'outsider', they feel that if you are living your life right there would be nothing to drive you to undertake a journey. This is a very 'British' thing to feel, we have no 'Pilgrimage' to undertake, no trip to Rome or Lourdes or Mecca. Perhaps the protestant work ethic is so ingrained, that travel for its own sake as a sort of redemptive sacrament is sacriligious to a worldview based on honest toil and 2 weeks on the Costa del Sol.
Damon.
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Sometimes the question is an opportunity. Everything I have done on a bike in the last few years has been inspired by other people – either by talking to them about what they have done or reading their ride reports. No one has ever told me that I couldn’t do what they had done and it’s encouraged me to go a little further each time
In 2005 I was a semi regular commuter but thought that forty miles was a long way. I got a more road-bikey hybrid that year and started doing some group rides – in 2006 I heard about something called the Dunwich Dynamo, read some of the amazing ride reports out there and wondered if I could do it. Up until that point the longest ride I had ever done was a 75 miler, back when I was about fourteen. I trained a bit, rode from London to Canterbury on one of Barry Mason’s group rides and then did the Dun Run (one of the wet years).
That same year a couple of people I work with did the Etape – something I barely even know existed until then (I worked with a guy in 2001 who did it but it was so far off my radar back then that it practically didn’t exist). I heard them talk about it before and afterwards and thought “I would like to maybe do that one day”. One day became next year as places became available through my work for the 2007 Etape. I was seriously overweight, didn’t even own a road bike but no-one (except the Cycling Weekly editorials) tried to deter me from entering – I bought a road bike and a Turbo late in 2006 and trained and trained – I rate completing that ride as one my best days on or off a bike.
I rode the JoGLE and La Marmotte last year without any specific training other than riding lots of miles – this year I’m back in ‘proper’ training mode for TRAT in June and then a serious attempt at a Silver Medal time in the Marmotte in early July.
All of this from being encouraged by other cyclists, so I try to answer the “Why do you do that?” questions as if they had asked me “How do I get to do that?”
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But there is always something in most people's lives that holds them back. I think part of it is the fear of being an 'outsider', they feel that if you are living your life right there would be nothing to drive you to undertake a journey. This is a very 'British' thing to feel, we have no 'Pilgrimage' to undertake, no trip to Rome or Lourdes or Mecca. Perhaps the protestant work ethic is so ingrained, that travel for its own sake as a sort of redemptive sacrament is sacriligious to a worldview based on honest toil and 2 weeks on the Costa del Sol.
Damon.
When I took voluntary redundancy in 2005 I went touring for 5 months.
I did think about selling my flat andpocketing all the money I'd make, which would be enough to keep me touring for about 20 years if I was carefull.
But what would happen in 20 years time. I'd most likely have to return to work and could be struggling to afford somewhere to live.
Maybe I'd have been perfectly OK.
I never took that chance, nor do I intend to because I could still do it.
All I am doing is hoping to have a secure future. Even though I have no guarentee of even having a future, let alone a comfortable one.
I still don't know if I've done what's best. I do know that I am doing as I've been conditioned to do via social pressure.
Not working for 5 months, then returning to work was a real eye opener to me.
Going to work isn't so bad. I don't think I've made a bad decision to return to what I was and I am happy. I don't know that it was the best decision though and whether I would be happier. I sometimes wonder, could I sell everything I have except for one bike and my camping gear, then just tour.
But if I continue with work, I will have paid my mortgage and can do the touring as much as I like. If it isn't as good as I thought, I don't have to start from scratch in getting a home. I'll have the best of both worlds.
As I said, I'm only hoping to secure my future, with no guarantees.
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"Going to work isn't so bad"
That simply depends what the work is, and whether you enjoy it.
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I was watching a programme on BBC4 last night, called 'Michael Smith's Drivetime' It's about the world of the road, the world of constant motion that's inhabited by lorry drivers and reps. It explored a lot of the ideas that I've been playing about with.
I've always lived in the strange exurbia on the edge of town where the mobile meets the fixed, so I'm interested in it and I accept it. I can't really imagine a fixed and secure existence, so I'm fascinated by how someone who is not on the edge of things might see the world. Do they see a rejection of routine as a betrayal or a threat?
The nearest I get to a routine would be a long contract, we'd be progressing from plot to plot, felling trees on the Motorway for instance, so there would be mobility, but the actions would be the same, as would the start and finish of every day. It has the same feel as a journey might have, the routine elements are quite consoling. There is usually a demanding deadline which gives an element of challenge and jeopardy, these elements are also inherent to the classic journey. The deadline is welcome because it draws a line under the event, I can also bill, which is handy. But the fitness gained from the job is a resource to be used, which can trigger wanderlust. I wonder if it is analagous to the way in which wars generally started after the harvest in the past, when the young men were at the height of physical condition.
So for me the answer to the question posed is that it lies somewhere in the middle ground between rootedness and restlessness, and that it so natural, that the surprise is that everyone doesn't do it.
Damon.
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I have really enjoyed reading this thread over the last few days. Mr H-W was telling one of his friends 'you know her_welshness is doing this 120 mile ride in the dark, she's a nutcase'. I just shrug. For me its just something thats got to be done, its that next thing on the horizon, like upping and changing your commute from 8 to 10 to 12 miles each way.
It's also not just about improvement. We get to go out there and see places which most of our friends will never ever see in their lifetimes. Over the past few years I have cycled around Bedforshire, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Hertfordshire and seen amazing buildings and landscapes, experienced some good cafes, pubs and cake shops and met some great people. And then you go back into work on Monday and say you did a 65 miles pootle on the Saturday, and they say 'god, thats such a long way - what made you decide to do that?'
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I posted something this morning, thought it was out of character for the thread, deleted it and was then was PMd by someone who said, in effect, "Oi! I was enjoying reading that! Put it back!" so I'll try to make amends. ;)
Following on from TG's post, I was wondering what motivates us to do anything, not just cycling, and in my case I think there's a lot of rebelliousness there. This was the case when I was at school: I didn't want to "follow the crowd" so I never joined such organisations as the scouts. I think there's a great herdism tendency in society and what is known as "growing up" and "settling down" is actually an attempt to crush rebelliousness.
My life decisions have largely been motivated by rebelling from the perceived norm - I've never grown up or properly settled down. I went into teaching and would probably have conformed and settled down along with everyone else had it not been for a succession of very hostile Secs. of State for Education under Thatcher who made the job so bloody intolerable that I just had to get out to preserve my sanity. Had it not been for that I would probably be a moderately unhappy deputy head of a primary school by now, marking time to retirement. I was good at teaching and kids liked me (that made me unpopular with some of my colleagues! ;D)
I went into Customs & Excise to program computers on a significant pay drop but almost immediately had a stroke of luck as a result of someone else's misfortune: the chess correspondent of the Ilford Recorder died suddenly and my name was put forward as his successor. The £20 I was paid each week to write about 500 words and supply a game and puzzle took me about 2 hours and more than made up for the shortfall in salary. I did this for 16 years.
I found the Civil Service a doddle after teaching. There was no real pressure, certainly not the every day, grinding kind of pressure which you get when you've got to educate a class of kids, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I enjoyed the work and just ignored for as long as I could the bits I didn't like, sailing pretty close to the wind discipline-wise as stupid initiatives began to appear, like ISO 9001 and a stultifying personal appraisal system. When the govt. decided that they wanted to hive off the computer division to the private sector and demotivated everyone with "market testing" I had no intention of jeopardising my pension by working for some devourer of other people's souls like Ross Perot so I started looking for exit strategies and one presented itself in the form of a voluntary redundancy. Having changed career once made it very much easier to do so a second time.
I had became a school governor and this too fed my rebellious nature as I found myself for the first time in contact with long-standing local politicians and was able to demonstrate exactly how crap they were as people. I spent one lunch time a week in the kids' school teaching the chess team and as a result they won the National Championship. This too was very satisfying as state primary schools in council estates are not meant to beat top independent schools at intellectual pursuits when profligate parents pay through the nose for the privilege of their kids being there! I therefore decided to try to become a self-employed chess teacher and after about 5 years we were living pretty comfortably from my earnings. I found that I gained far more respect from head teachers as a weekly visitor to their school than I ever did as an employee.
Back to cycling. People who do what they are expected to do are easier to control, and putting them in cars, with all the regulation that goes with that, fits in with society's expectations whereas riding bikes, which is largely unregulated and therefore much more liberating, is frowned upon. It's no coincidence that twats like Clarkson are paid lots of money to lead the charge - but that just makes the rebel in me say "F off! I'll ride a bike, thanks!"
So it's never bothered me that people ask bloody silly questions like "Why did you decide to do that?" The answer is normally "Because to do what most people do is bloody stupid!".
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I was talking to a friend as we cycled through the Strathmore countryside a few weeks ago. We were riding along roads we had never ridden, selected semiarbitrarily from a map.
"You know" he said " In the last three years since I started riding the bike, I have seen more of the local countryside than in the previous 40. I have discovered places on my doorstep that I never knew existed. I can see how history has changed the place. I've lost a stone and a half in weight and the doc is no longer threatening to put me on pills. You'd have to be mad not to cycle."
..d
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The thing that struck me the first time I did a long-distance ride was how you see every inch of the way - you still daydream some of it just as on a train journey or go on auto-pilot as on a drive, but you notice all the gradual changes of geology and character of the land. Not being interested in that aspect of the journey and wanting to be somewhere far away as immediately as possible is an attitude I associate with work - get there, do the gig, get home. But for experiencing the world, the journey is as important as the destination. That's when I discover what goes on in people's minds - or rather what doesn't - when my mate with the office job says "I just want to put my feet up" - as if putting his feet up 8 hours every single day of his working life in front of a computer weren't enough.
A distinction which is never made is between mind and body - the body, that in everyday life doesn't get anywhere near enough "hard work" to keep itself fit, suddenly gets let loose, and the mind is allowed to switch off, which it does even more so than it would by the pool on a package holiday because it has menial stuff like route-finding or cooking to do, not to mention occasionally being blown away by amazing scenery or the resulting flights of phylosophy. When you're trekking or bike touring, the anxious mind switches off - the body's going for it, which it can't in most jobs these days, but your mind, which is stressed out in most jobs, calms down.
When I take to the hills I find for the first week my mind is going ten to the dozen, a constant unstoppable burble of schemes, plans, problems, solutions, arguments... and a few anxiety dreams thrown in too - e.g. I'm locked in the toilet in an airport in Korea but out of a porthole I can see my double bass being loaded onto a flight for Morocco, oh dear the baggage handlers have dropped it out of the hold onto the runway, here comes a 747 to run over it... and I left my passport on the plane which was refuelling before going off to Alicante but whoops it's crashed into the sea, and look there's my 7-year old who's strapped on a pair of wings from a nativity play and is flapping past with a smile on his face - watch out he's crashed into a wall, and by the way where's all the printouts of the music we're supposed to be playing, oh don't worry I'll just make it up - wait here comes a posh looking woman, she says "are you the famous Raph, I can't wait for your concert I've heard all about you" - who the hell is she? What am I supposed to be playing? Where's my bass? .... and I wake up in a cold sweat, in my tent on a beautiful lonely ledge in glorious sunshine... everything's ok, PHEW!
After about a week it starts to die down, after two weeks I'm simply chilled out and happy. Who says you can't cycle away from problems??? I get to this state of mind where I can sit still for an hour or more at a time and watch the world go by like old codgers in mountain villages. That's what trekking or cycle touring does for me. Normally I can't sit for one minute without feeling I've got to get on with something. Every second without achieving anything is a tragedy all of its own, whereas touring or trekking turns it into an extra hour spent chilled out and mellow.
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Umm.. What Raph said. In spades.
..d
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I suppose I'm a bit of a rebel too. But I'm rebelling against myself. I'm quite persuasive, so I can convince myself that sitting around contemplating my navel, reading the papers and snacking on meusli at 2 in the afternoon does indeed count as a lifestyle choice.
But how to trick myself into the active outlook which part of my normally resistant self has absorbed from the pervading miasma of healthite propaganda.
Well, one response is to take their sensible advice and take it to ridiculous extremes, I’m so lazy and disorganised that there is a satisfying irony in turning up to a village hall for a 6 am. start to an event with a prescribed course and prescribed times. The idea of me riding as far as 1400 km is so absurd as to be almost irresistible to my rebellious streak. The only way that such an enterprise could be more alien to me is if I took it into my head to record the event in widescreen and high-definition.
So on one level I’ve decided to do it because it seems so very unikely. It has turned me into a card-carrying ironicist.
Damon.
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I have been pndering this question in relation to my ride across America. Difficult one to answer. Like Damon, I considered it so absurd that it had to be done. Why not ?