Robot’s Useless Reviews – Ecstasy

Look, I’m not telling you to do party drugs. I’m certainly not advocating that you invest in a Costco-sized box of glow sticks or buy yourself a pair of metal underpants. I’m not implying that you should put Burning Man into your Google calendar or even put your hands in the air, waving them in a manner that suggests you’re not emotionally invested in the outcome of all of this nonsense.

I have never been a big fan of oontz, oontz, oontz music, and while I’m in pretty good shape, I can only have a dancing woman on my shoulders for so long before the physical toll of last year’s collarbone fracture becomes evident and I need to get down on the ground and do my mobility exercises. Festival goers might interpret that as dancing, but probably not.

And so…assuming all those assumptions, why would I possibly being talking about ecstasy on a cycling website. Of all the substances a cyclist could ingest to enhance their performance, is Molly (MDMA) the one you should be tossing back with the hard seltzer or Jager-bomb of the moment? I myself live a drug and alcohol free lifestyle and would never advocate that you do street drugs while riding your bike.

BUT.

Listen, I went on a ride with my wife last week, and we brought water with us, and water was not enough to heal whatever rift there is between us when we ride bikes together. Now, I love my wife, and our marriage is the foundation of a happy and secure life, a partnership that has produced so much joy and prosperity, a pair of young, healthy robots with bright futures, and a wellspring of humor, understanding, and mutual support.

Except when we ride bikes.

When we ride bikes together I ruin everything in every way at all times. This I have come to accept. It’s me. It’s my fault. We could enumerate my sins, but it’s basically all the sins: sloth, envy, avarice, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I have usually not maintained our bikes properly and that’s a problem. I have usually not memorized our route sufficiently. I often go too fast. Sometimes I say the wrong thing. I fail to choose terrain befitting the day’s weather, or I make us stay out longer than is strictly necessary.

I am not a church-goer, but maybe I should put one on our routes, so I can perform a confession along the way, the better to unburden myself of my many transgressions.

This all brings me back to Ecstasy. (For those of you who are sticklers for accuracy, Ecstasy is the street version of MDMA, aka Molly, the latter being more popular for its lack of adulterating substances, like caffeine or horse sperm (I made that up). I have also chosen to capitalize Ecstasy to distinguish it from the feeling you get from removing your chamois after any ride 50 miles or longer).

As I said, I’m not drug-user, unless chewing handfuls of Ibuprofen counts, but I can just imagine how things might go if the wife and I popped a couple of the aforementioned pills in advance of our sojourns together, how we might glide along, appreciating the greenness of the trees and the symphony of birdsong, smiling at each other until our faces began to cramp in that position, a far off oontz, oontz, oontz calling us forward into ever more cycling bliss.

The mind capers to fathom the feeling of chamois-removal after a ride like that, Ecstasy merging with ecstasy, and likely giving way to the sort of frenzied human love-making captured in books like the Kamasutra, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and certain unexpurgated passages of the Old Testament.

For those of us unlikely to reach any podiums (podia?) or set any FKTs, or maybe even beyond any PRs, an experience like that might be the pinnacle (pinochle?), the ne plus ultra, of our cycling lives. I am very definitely not saying you should do rave drugs with your significant other before riding bikes, but I am also not, not saying it.