2023 Review #2: bicycle rides

Bicycle turned out to be the best transport to ride away from the anxiety.

This is a second part of a 2023 review where I am sharing my best moves of 2023.

Ease of buying sport equipment doesn’t mean it is easy to get into activities.

Let’s start rollin’

It was the end of my childhood, around 20 years ago when I gave my on riding a bicycle and traded this to a less unhealthy but more fun-in-the-moment activities, later getting a car for a commute.

Last year I could not resist anymore and bought a bicycle. In the first 24h hours I made my first 50km and that was the crazy decision, due to the fact I was absolutely unprepared for such a ride. It was late April, when the weather, luckily, is not always great. Therefore I spent next week on restoring myself after the 2 trips (one of ~20km, next day ~30km). At the same time I clearly understood it did not discourage me from further riding. Therefore I spent May in on a 30-40km long rides and hit my first long trip for almost 80km in a single day in an early June.

What is this article actually about

To be honest it took me a while to finish this article. When I first started I wen so deep to to my previous, happy childhood experience. It even stopped to match the topic at a single point, however I found out it lead me to an interesting thoughts I would like to share as a part of this article.

Anxiety is an issue that disturbs a lot of people living nowadays on the planet Earth. Plenty of materials are available bot online and offline. But recently I have cought an interesting idea.

How do we know anxiety comes from „overthinking” and not due to us getting „overpowered”?

Like a boiling water that becomes a steam and does everything to escape the volume which tries to keep it grounded. Anxiety are our lost chances to act, missed calls-to-actions that comes from the depth of our souls and brains. Such a point of view explained much and it here is how 2000km of bicycle riding helped me to get here.

Emotions and feeling are not triggers - they are reactions to a trigger.

Yes, another broad topic that I am bringing to this article which, however, allows me to bring it all together.

A year ago I gave myself a time to relax, cure and figure out where is the exit from the dark cave I found myself in. Obviously the exit was in the darkest corner, as many other stories I have met online I had to learn to understand myself: why I feel, what I think and how to express all that efficiently. These were the main parts I was missing, it might be a topic for the other article the other day.

Since that time, I was not only trying to understand what I feel, what I want etc. I was also looking for a more healthy ways to react, in example: how do I react on stress? I adopted simple strategy: I have to take my stress for a walk. Due to the fact most of the stress was coming from the anxiety and overthinking: I was almost never walking alone. I was not working full time by that time and I could allow myself a really long walk.

Nevertheless after I got into walking routine in the mornings and additional walking for fun, when it was enough of reading and watching I understood it is not enough. Despite the fact this activity helped me to transform „overthinking” into actions I knew it is not enough. I can do more, we can have more fun with my stress and anxiety.

Finally the bicycle rides

This was so awesome: just me, pedaling to the places I have never been using routes I have never chosen before. Great weather, spring... Blooming nature was always the best inspiration for me.

Extensive and enjoyable physical activity opened a whole new world for me.

Not only moving for free, and tracking the progress of getting faster bit by bit. This was truly what I needed to cure and the best thing: there is nobody else I need to rely on. Even if I want: it is me pedaling, so it’s me making all the related decisions. Smell of the freedom I have been missing crossed with the childhood memories. I missed that, I miss it now and I am looking towards riding again as soon as winter is over.

Don’t hit, take a brisk walk first

Stress is often referred as „hit or run” reaction. It can be easily abstracted to „act” reaction. Taking my stress, anxiety or both for a walk worked just great and the only thing I might regret right now working full time job it is not always convenient to do so. This is definitely something to upgrade and improve in the nearest feature.

Other than feeling emotionally better, of course amount of effort and kcal I physically burned helped me to reduce the weight and get into a better physical condition. Apart of it I obviously could not apply refuse my engineer vein and not to try to maintain bicycle on my own. Right now there is a pending improvements apart of annual maintenance I have to do. Luckily snow is still everywhere and I got some more time to learn.

P.S. In case you know how to replace the rear hub and rebuild the wheel please reach me out :)