7 Lessons from riding 1,300 miles in 22 days

Tweet Version : — “Zoom Out and your path looks straighter. Resistance strengthens. People love a story, ask for help. Frustration is useless. Love. Be mindful in the dull. Stay hungry.”

An Uber driver dropped wisdom on me the week prior to embarking on a journey from Eugene, OR to Tijuana via bicycle. I explained to him the “plan” or lack thereof, and said, “maybe I’m just riding away from something”. He countered and said, “or you’re riding towards something”. Hmm. Okay. I like that. Let’s ride.

With zero experience, zero training, and a very loose plan, we hit the road.

Photo after crushing one of our first hills.

1,300 plus miles in 22 days. We didn’t set any records. We went down paths traveled by many. But, it was a new experience for us. We named the trip, “Tour de Fear” and we get into why we embarked on the journey here :).

Spoiler alert: We did it, and with the new set of experiences comes a new narrative and perspective to view life.

The parallels between riding a bike and life are endlessly cliché, but here are a few through my eyes.

1. Zoom Out

The route was twisty, turny, ziggity, and zaggedy. It was east and west when we were trying to go south. But, zoom out far enough, and it was a pretty damn straight line. There was one goal in mind (besides survival). GET TO THE BORDER.

We survived, but sheesh those uphill twisties that made me go east or west instead of south sucked. At the moment, it felt like we were wasting time, but hindsight reveals it was much faster than building our own road through the forest, beach, or farm.

We had directions, a course to follow. Life isn’t always like that. There isn’t a map that breaks down the exact mileage for you and tells you where to turn. Life wouldn’t be any fun that way. It’d be easy. And I swear humans don’t like easy lives. We romanticize them, but it ain’t it. If life gets easy, we go ahead and create drama for ourselves or find a hill worth climbing.

We don’t have a map or siri, but we do have intuition. We have our own unique likes, skills, and curiousities. How often do we ignore those and adhere to a path that has nothing to do with our own desire because it makes financial sense or appeases significant others?

“For I have a single definition of success: you look in the mirror every evening, and wonder if you disappoint the person you were at 18, right before the age when people start getting corrupted by life. Let him or her be the only judge; not your reputation, not your wealth, not your standing in the community, not the decorations on your lapel. If you do not feel ashamed, you are successful. All other definitions of success are modern constructions; fragile modern constructions.” — Nassim Taleb

No two paths are the same. Each zig or zag is a learning or strengthening experience. If there is a goal in mind, hopefully you’re not purposefully getting off course or stagnating.

2. Resistance affects your state of mind.

Headwind, oh headwind.
With tired legs, stressed mind, crushed soul
I will continue.

There’s my headwind haiku.

Headwind you suck. It’s brutal to work as hard as you can while making incredibly slow progress.

But what is it doing? It’s making you stronger. It’s testing your will power. You know what it’s going to feel like when it ain’t there? Beautiful. What is beautiful without the suck? I had to battle all my demons through the headwinds. In the end, slow progress is still progress.

Tailwind = Bliss. Pure bliss. These moments made me understand why anybody would ride a bicycle. It’s friction-free cruising. All was right in the world as we were getting to our goal faster. I’d also lock into a flow state with wind on my back. My mind would wander and I’d be 10 miles down the road in no time.

Hills- Hills suck, but they got me into the flow. My mind turns off and the sweat goes. I’m fully in my body. It’s simply me and what is in front of me. FLOW. Hills provide a challenge. A challenge that I willingly signed up for and deemed battle-worthy.

Here’s a pic of my bike before she got ran over by a car.

3. Frustration is Worthless

I opted for the character choice of “cheap bike guy”. Needless to say, I paid for it. My chain fell off more than 20 times and to cap it off, the handlebars got ran over by a car (it’s actually a miracle she survived this). I got so frustrated once that I picked up my bike and threw it in a ditch in a display of childish anger. Brock even had to call me out on it when I got snappy like a two-year-old with some of my replies. This is embarrassing to write, but it was a learning moment.

The frustrated state of mind clouded my thoughts, judgments, and even vision. The mental chatter was horribly detrimental. When I got frustrated, I forgot about the beauty around me, and all the blessings I’ve received to be able to go on a bike tour in the first place. I’d lose my patience, which would make me take even longer to fix the issue at hand.

Anger makes the day longer. The lens through which you interpret things changes when the blood is boiling. Your body language and facial expressions won’t be attracting anything good either.

Snapping out of this state isn’t easy. It requires conscious effort for me, and it’s something I’m working on:)

4. People Love a Story, Ask for Help

As aforementioned, Brock and I had a very loose plan and a very small budget. Motels were to be used sparingly. We got ourselves into a couple of situations where we had no clue where to sleep so… we asked people.

Asking people was nerve-racking, but the couple times we did it, we were very successful. People saw our bikes with our bags and were very intrigued about our journey and our goal. Turns out, people are very helpful and find joy in serving others.

This made me wonder how often I miss a potential connection that would’ve helped me simply because I did not ask. No’s might hurt or be awkward, but it’s just a word. My second favorite definition of success — “Success is helping others succeed”- Adam Grant

5. Be Mindful in the Process. It’s More Fun.

Mindfulness and presence is what every self-help/philosophy book preaches. Something finally clicked for me during the hours of pedaling and watching Brock’s example of how he did the tent.

I’d be in a rush to do the tent while Brock seemed to take his time. I’d be thinking about what was next (cold soup, or playoff game), while he seemed to be content with the mundane process of setting up the tent. My haste would lead to mistakes and I would often take longer to set up or take down the tent.

I noticed that a similar narrative was playing out in many situations of my life.

So often I find myself thinking about the next thing. The internal dialogue goes something like, “Okay if I can get through this I get to do that”. But too often when I’m doing “that” my mind wanders somewhere else to the next thing. I’ll rush an activity that I don’t like at the moment (laundry, dishes, etc.), which will actually cause me more time and anguish later.

By simply paying attention to the matter at hand, previous dreaded tasks have become much more enjoyable. Weird.

6. Love thy Fam

I love you is a funny phrase. I might say it to the waiter for bringing me the dessert or it might take me 5 years to say it to a significant other.

The mind wanders significantly while pedaling for 5 plus hours in a day. I found myself thinking about all the decisions I’ve made, career goals, family, and gals. Ha, especially gals.

When cycling, you’re basically leaving your life in the hands of the drivers. Especially on those blind turns on uphills or freeways we rode on. Life can end or change significantly due to just an untimely sneeze.

I learned another thing from Brock. He always said I love you to his parents. I’ve tried it out since and I like it. Not only is it a nice way to end a conversation instead of the awkward “bye” out of nowhere, but it also leaves a warm feeling. I’m incredibly blessed to have great parents who offer nothing but love, which is something I do not take for granted. Yet, I’ve been super reluctant to say “I love you” to them. Life’s too short for this. If you’re lucky like me, there’s still plenty of love even if you are not directly on the path your parents would prefer you be on, and I’m sure they’d appreciate those three words being said.

7. Stay Hungry

My best pedaling occurred when I was slightly hungry. If I got too full, it was incredibly difficult to get back into it. The slight discomfort was a motivator to press on.

We are constant comfort seekers. It’s a slippery slope. Once you get used to one comfort then you seek another one. Next thing you know, you’re broke, bored, and soft.

We listened to a bit of Navy Seal David Goggins’ book before the mission to get us fired up. The man is insane, check him out if you don’t know his story. He has voluntarily subjected himself to more discomfort and pain than I could imagine. He calls this becoming hard. Overcoming discomfort unlocks new possibilities and growth. Battling fears, anxieties, and discomforts makes for an interesting life of learning and evolving.

P.S.

If you’ve ever had the slight thought of going on a bike tour, just send it. You’ll figure it out.

7 Lessons from Riding 1,300 Miles in 22 Days (Nov. 12, 2020)