LSD Ride; "Long Slow Distance" ride. That's what I hear people in my cycling club calling it. It's usually used to describe an endurance building ride or a ride where someone is trying to build up their base mileage in preperation for a century or a tour. However, the use of the acronym does sound a bit odd.

Just out of curiosity one day I asked my cycling club friends why they call it that. Not a single person knew. All they knew is that is what it has always been called. I asked if the term had it's origins with drug use but nobody knew that either.

I was curious why it wasn't just called a long distance ride or something else so I did a search on google. I ended up finding several references to "Dr. Hoffman's magical bicycle ride". Apparently the guy who did the first acid trip did so while on a bicycle. I only found one website where a cycling club jokingly made a connection between bikes and the drug.

I know my friends in the cycling club aren't druggies so I'm not worried about that. It just strikes me funny when a group of people frequently use a word or phrase but can't give an explanation for it. When we've had club meetings in restaurants it has sure turned some heads of non cycling people when they hear that the club is having an LSD ride!

Does anybody here know why that particular term was chosen and if it is related in any way with drug use?