It seems really difficult for adults to allow themselves to play. Or rather, it seems really difficult for many adults to admit and embrace that what they are doing is play. We might jokingly say “Let’s play bikes,” but we’re being ironic, because of course only children play.
And me.
Increasingly, it’s all I want to do on my bike. For decades, it felt important for me to take bike riding seriously, to go as far as I could, or as fast as I could, and when not doing one or both of those things, to be focused on training to do one or both of those things. I convinced myself I was doing it more correctly than other people were. I learned the rules. I even followed some of them. And this was all play actually, that could not or would not accept was play.
Let me couch it in some other terms.
If you put on a costume to engage in an activity that you are not overwhelmingly good at, but the costume is the same costume that professionals wear, what do you call that? There are elements of role-playing and made up games. None of this, mind you, is wrong or bad. On the absolute contrary, I think it’s one of the healthiest things we can do, to pretend we are more or better than we really are.
My youngest son (he’s 16 now), loved to wear a cape, fingerless gloves, shinguards on his forearms, goggles slung around his neck. We would go to the hardware store with him looking like that. In his mind, he looked like a superhero, and the costume was convincing enough in his mind, that he believed other people also might think he was a superhero. This bit of pretend absolutely melted the minds and hearts of casual passersby, and he didn’t question himself for a second, which is simultaneously adorable and brave.
So why bring this up? What’s the point? Am I trying to get people to take themselves less seriously? Maybe, although that’s not as important to me, as taking myself less seriously. And this is not, virtue-minded ego deflation I’m after. I’m honestly just trying to have more fun, and as it turns out, recognizing that what you’re really after is fun, I mean really in your heart of hearts, helps you make better decisions about how you do it, and helps you detach from the outcomes that so many of us will only ever find disappointing, e.g. discovering we’re still just average bike riders.
When I head out on the bike now, I’m not preoccupied by how far I go or how fast, even though either one of those things might be an ingredient of the fun I’m after. I’m more in the moment, just looking for the next awesome thing to do, like swoop a turn, or go off a drop, or bunny hop a rock, and I take a lot more enjoyment from each of those little things.
When I was 10 years old, I’d roll out of the driveway on my BMX bike. This is in Alabama. We lived in a classic American sub-division, a pre-planned, sequestered neighborhood. Every driveway had an identical curb cut. Between the rows of houses there were cement rain culverts. I might be heading to a friend’s house, but I’d hit half-dozen curb cuts on the way there, popping my front wheel high, lifting the rear behind, just jumping the bike for the pure joy of jumping the bike. Once we met up, we might wander aimlessly around the neighborhood, doing more of this, or we might ride the rain culverts, or we might set up some plywood and bricks to practice jumping for distance. Just playing.
In the intervening decades (FOUR OF THEM!!), I’ve ridden an awful lot without inhabiting that 10 year old mindset. It’s not that I never did. It’s that I didn’t nearly enough. And now I do, and it is totally f%$*ing sublime.
Please don’t mistake my point here. I’m not saying everyone should be bombing around on a BMX bike pretending their bones aren’t brittle. If you love group road rides, or time trialing, or triathlon, or whatever, I’m only suggesting that you might enjoy it more if you embraced the playfulness of it. Bike riding can be monastic if you want it to be. It can be masochistically grueling if you want. I guess I’d just suggest that life is plenty like that anyway, AND to some extent, pretending you can purify yourself, make yourself more worthy of love in some way, by pedaling a bicycle, is also a fantasy. It is also just playing, but without a happy ending.
I’ve played on bikes since I first ever rode one. My first road ride on an actual road bike was not until the early 00s. On that first road ride I jumped a train track rise to the astonishment and horror of my fellow riders. I was unaware that was not looked fondly upon. I had crossed paths with riders whom I thought took themselves too seriously prior in XC races and the like, but riding as a serious endeavor was elevated to a whole new level with roadies. I used to make fun of these types of personalities until I came to realize that everyone has their own kind of fun. Some only find joy in going from point A to point B as quickly as possible. For other it’s racing and the training that goes along with it. That’s okay. Whatever turns you on.
When riding started to feel like a job, I knew I was doing something wrong.