The Joys Of Cycling: Going Slow

I have decided to write a series of articles on some of things I really like about cycling. I have no idea how many of these I might end up writing, but it might be a few, because I like a lot of things about cycling.

Going slow. Monday I did the Marathon Monday ride. What turned out to be about 70 miles in a little less than three hours…Tuesday I rode to work very slowly. I was sore yes, but also frankly I was sick of going fast.

On my slow ride I reawakened to the joys of dragging ass on a bike. Moving just fast enough to feel a little breeze on your cheek, and to keep the scenery flowing. I noticed that if you go slow enough, you can hit almost all the green lights. I noticed that cars seemed to pose much less of a problem at low speeds. I saw more birds, I noticed more pedestrians, I soaked up more sun.

Going slow might not be a revelation to many, but to me it was glorious. So often I fall victim to the “get from a to b as fast as possible” syndrome of modern travel. Purposefully slowing my pace did all sorts of good to bust me out of that “faster faster faster” frame of mind. I found that I didn’t really care what other people did, I was enjoying the ride.

The speed of my travel was such that I could actually day dream a little. Normally I am laser focused on plying the streets at top speed. When I slowed way down I noticed I had extra CPU cycles left over for other thoughts. I actually had a couple ideas that I wrote down as soon as I got home. While this might have been a smidgen dangerous, I wasn’t so out of it that I stopped looking for moving vehicles and road signs/lights.

Next time you find yourself on a nice sunny day, SLOW DOWN. Let the world rush by. Take your time, you will enjoy it I promise.

Add to Reddit.

Tweet