Winter cycling adventures are a tonic for your mind and soul.
Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you
As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I always felt different to my peers. Perhaps they all felt the same, but no one was brave enough to admit it. So everyone just went with the flow. We played football in the park, went shopping with our parents at the weekend, then watched “The Dukes of Hazzard” on TV. Not that there was anything wrong with any of this. My friends and I played outside whenever we could. We built dens and climbed trees, but I knew there was more adventure out there, I just didn’t know how to access it.
Cycling and new adventures
It wasn’t until I participated in the Duke of Edinburgh Award (D of E) that things became clearer. Instantly I could see a different path ahead of me. To this day, everything I did as part of that award has had a major impact on my life. From the 18-year career in social care that I started from volunteering on the award to the career I have now in cycling – I joined my first cycling club as part of the D of E award. Through participation in the award, I gained skills and the confidence to push beyond my lack of self-confidence and crippling shyness and try new activities. One of the key aspects was the independence I gained. I discovered sports such as hill-walking and cycling that I didn’t need to be part of a team to enjoy. I could just head off into the hills with my thoughts. I found I had abilities that my peers lacked, such as navigating with a map and compass. I went from being the person no one wanted on a team to being the one that everyone wanted in their Cairngorm hiking expedition group.
Cycling adventures and heading out for walks into forests and up hills still gives me this sense of freedom and release from the world around us. Increasingly, technology, pressures from work, family commitments, and day-to-day life can become big grinds on our mental and physical health. The opportunity to escape all of that, even if only for an hour pays huge dividends. I have other motivations to ride my bike, such as fitness and work, but taking time to cycle just for myself is a tonic for my soul. It doesn’t even really matter what the weather is like. When the sun shines it is nice to feel its warmth on my face, but equally, I have pedalled through dark and dingy forests where the mist has hung heavily in the air and I have felt just as uplifted. I don’t think I am alone in this feeling. Of course, many of you will read this and recognise the same feelings, but I believe many would not identify, or even welcome a cycle ride out in the rain and mud, or inclement weather.
I don’t want to philosophise too much here, but I believe we are heading so far from our basic instincts that our health is suffering. We are constantly surrounded by artificial stimulation. Many of us live, work, and play in large towns and cities and never get opportunities to be on our own, away from everything with just nature around us. I know when I have been in situations like that I get increasingly stressed and angry and long for the isolation and solitude of a mountain or a forest. The song by Crowded House, ‘Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you’, I believe is about life being what you make of it. If you are continuously surrounded by noise and stimulation then your life is going to head in a similar trajectory.
The physical benefits of exercise are well documented and knowledge about improving mental health and happiness is increasingly linked with being out in the natural world. We tend to fret a lot about our physical health, but perhaps it is our mental health that should come first. Rather than heading to the gym for a spin on a static bike, take a cycling adventure into a muddy forest, or mountain trail instead.
Trust me, you will not regret it.
