Saturday I spent over 8 hours building a retaining wall. The wall took 131 concrete stones at 30 pounds each. I loaded then on and off my trailer, and placed each one individually in place. Needless to say, at the end of the project I was spent. My wife arrived just as I finished placing the last stone. I told her I had done enough, and I was going to go for a ride. She laughed and told me to come inside and relax. Ten minutes later I had all my gear on and was in the process bringing my bike out of the basement when my wife says, “You weren’t kidding?”
“No”, my reply.
“I thought you were. I mean, who actually wants to work all day so that they can go out and work some more?”
Obviously she doesn’t feel the same about cycling as I. As I rode I thought about what she had said, and I don’t thing I have ever actually thought of cycling as work. I find it very relaxing, even when I hammer I don’t see it as work. I have many consistent years into cycling, and my body has become very used to the motions and effort that it requires. Lifting stones = work, riding my bike = joy. Are there others here that feel this way? The question I have is have I become too used to cycling? What are your thoughts?

Ditto! I commute 9 miles in to work, 13-20 or more home. People as "Do you ever wake up and think 'Man, I really don't feel like riding my bike to work this morning'". I tell them no it's the other way around. Sometimes I get up and think "Man, I really don't feel like going to work this morming." Then I think "But if I don't go to work, I don't get to ride my bike!" Rain or shine, heat or cold, the thought of riding gets me out of bed in the morning and gives me something to look forward to all day at work. Getting to ride with my buds on weekends is what we her in New Oreans call lagniappe (lanyap), a little something extra.

Although I personally agree with you, I know some people who like landscaping and never ride bike. They would think just the opposite as we do.

It all depends on what you enjoy.

There are times when I have to make myself go ride (it feels like work) but 5 minutes in the feeling vanishes.

as i have been racing on and off for a few years, there are times when i have to make myself ride as part of my "training" but even then, as soon as i actually get on the bike and go, i love it!

and yes, there are those days when it's cold or i bonk or whatever and i feel the pain, but it's always good and in retrospect i love it and can't imagine life without it.

i just spent a week of vacation riding acros the Alps from Germany to Italy with 432km and 15,000 vertical meters of climbing. it was a lot of work, a little bit of pain and most people like my co-workers think i'm a freak for doing such on "vacation", but I love it ----- if work = efforts, then yeah, it's work --- but if "work" is something i don't really want to do but have to do anyway, then Cycling is definitely NOT work for me...

i do pity those for whom almost any form of exercise is "work" and requires motivation and effort... i go crazy IF i don't

My job is lifting there are days I lift 5 tons of product before break than I ride riding hasn't seemed like work since I did my first century and of course it is an addiction that MUST be fed

I remember riding centuries with the bike club, getting home mid-afternoon, eating dinner then cutting my half acre of grass with a push mower.

I thought nothing of it, like it was perfectly normal. Still do.

We're not the crazy ones, it's them. I swear!

I think my wife understands this situation. My mother-in-law is another story. :confused:
When I come in from cycling she always asks, "Aren't you tired?"
My response is always, "No, just hot and sweaty, but refreshed."

She is like many folks who don't exercise very often. They equate almost any type of body movement with work.

The people that think it crazy are the ones who don't start an exercise routine because it's "too hard."

Hell, I mention that I've got a thirty-mile bike commute to work, and people look at me like I'm nuts. My response is usually something along the lines of, "But it's only thirty miles; there are tons of cyclists who consider that a warmup!"

Hell, besides, cycling is a hell of a lot more fun than sitting on a stationary bike at a gym; with the added benefit of being able to *go* somewhere[1]. Cycling also provides motivation for lazy bastards like me; about the point I'm thirty miles from home and just want to relax, I really don't have much of an option except bike the thirty miles home.

[1] Let's see, forty-five boring minutes on a Lifecycle, or an hour and a half of fun on my hybrid while I run errands around town...

There is a member of my household who reverses that logic occasionally. Kind of like, "Since you have enough energy to ride, maybe we could put the shelves up in the garage today?"

It usually works too.

Carl