Endorphin Cycle Junkie

< sarcasm warning>

 The following posting is full of tongue and cheek commentary about cycling and what goes on in my brain.  Humor is the main point of this blog post, but as with any of my public writings there is a bit of reality in my blog posts.  If you are easily offended or want to argue about scientific facts on human biology and psychology do not read this blog post

</ sarcasm warning> 

I am a child of the sixties born at the end of the baby boom.  I was (and still am in my mind) an African American hippie that dropped out of college and joined a religious cult and moved to the mountains during the early seventies.  I have been exposed to many addictive substances in my life from over the air TV to Green Giant frozen creamed corn in a bag and I have reached the ripe age of an early sexagenarian without ever having to battle any serious physical addition except one.  The only thing that I have struggled with all of my live is my obsession with endorphins.

There are only two activities that give me the endorphins that are strong enough to satisfy my mood swings, cycling and trail running.  Activities like vacuuming and mopping the floors in my house do not produce any endorphins.  Even things that I am good at and love dearly like creating artwork do not produce endorphins the way that cycling does.  Most mornings before I get on my bike to ride the 25-45 mile ride to work I am so discouraged I struggle to put on my cycling gear.   After I get on my bike and start to ride the rush of anticipation that the endorphins are going to kick in make me so excited to be outside in the dark morning staring at a fog line with the help of my bike light.

I am doing everything that I can think of to ensure that I get a constant supply of endorphins.  I first started playing a game that I invented when I lived in Portland, ride more miles to work than you drive in your truck. So far I am ahead on the bike in miles.  Just to ensure that I am riding enough miles I have forsaken riding directly to work on my bike.  My direct commute to work is anywhere between 8 and 15 miles.  I take the long loop to work on my bike which is 25 to 35 miles.  My attitude to riding a bike is that if it takes me 15 minutes to put on your bike gear and get out the door I had better ride at least 90 minutes.

The next thing that I did was start riding with the local bike club.  Feeding the excuse to get our and ride a bike as fast as I can pedal is why I joined the Pecan City Pedalers Bicycle Club (PCP).  The folks in PCP are a lively bunch and they encouraged me to ride with them and soon I was riding faster in the group than I ever expected.  The PCP rides super charge my rush of endorphins because cycling with a 20 to 30 cyclist down a country road is the ultimate rush.   Sometimes when I am on a group ride I pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming.

The next thing that I did was to sign up for some bicycling challenges like riding 10,000 miles in one year and participating in the National Bike Challenge.  Signing up for these events ensue that I am monitoring other cyclist that are as fanatical about how many miles that they are riding as I am.  Sometimes I think about my job as just an excuse to ride my bike.  I need to work and get money for food.  I have to pay a mortgage on my home so the job gives me an excuse to get out of the house and ride to work.  Once at work I have an excuse to ride home to eat and sleep so I can have energy to ride to work the next day.  I can summarize my life as a cycling sandwich, work and home are the bread and cycling is in the middle like peanut butter.

One day on my way to work I imagined that I may be stuck in a SyFy movie where somehow I was transported into this little town in SW Georgia where all of the cool cyclist wind up when the alien space ships are done with them.  I imagined this world having perfectly flat roads and just the right amount of headwinds to make you pedal harder to get more endorphins.  i never seem to get out of Georgia so I think that the aliens that put me here are not allowing me to go past the limits of this reality.  Maybe the aliens wipe my brain every evening because when I wake up and ride down Mud Creek road it seems like I am riding it for the first time everyday.

Bottom line is that I love riding my bike.  hope to see you out on the road soon.