this will be (like most crap i spew) disjointed and random, and has nothing to do with anything. for what it's worth, i was neither drunk nor high when i wrote it....

so i was thinking....

yeah yeah yeah, cycling is good for you, you get exercise, all that...but i think it's good for you on a philosophical level as well...

mountain biking leads to a pretty existentially lived life. it helps give life meaning (to some) and it helps you live passionately and sincerely. when you are mountain biking, you are living an authentic life (unless you are one of those poseurs who sits around all day with the cleanest bike in the world drinking lattes, but that is another post). you are out, in nature, experiencing it first hand. you can talk about the smell of pine, the texture of rocks, the different soils that make up the land. in one ride you learn more about the world we live in, about actual real life, than someone who has only read 100 books and magazines about it or watched 100 hours of mountain bike videos.

to be existential/zen about it, mountain biking keeps you in the moment, there is no daydreaming, no mind wandering, and if there is, you are brought back to the moment quite painfully. when you are biking, you are aware of yourself, your breathing, your body, the world around you, the wind, the heat or cold.

you learn about yourself, you question what it truly means to suffer, you question what it means to be happy, what it means to truly live, to take chances, you find your own values of success and failure.


there is pain and suffering, there is struggle, but you learn to overcome obstacles (literal, like rocks and roots, and figurative, broken chains, flats, bonking, weather) and you realize that the rewards and beauty you get are directly proportional to the pain and the suffering you put into it. ever notice all the super sweet trails, the best trails, some of the greatest riding, are always somewhere you have to work super hard to get to? you don't get the good stuff for free, you have to earn it.

and of course, when riding with others, the questions of "truth" and "reality" loom greatly all around us. what might be an easy line for one person is a difficult techy line for another (this too is another post).

there is more, but i think i will leave it at that for now....