The Ride Will Teach You What You Need to Know

A long-distance bicycle ride will teach you things you could never learn by simply watching a YouTube video or reading about one.

Before my ride, I thought a lot about mileage, equipment, training, routes, and logistics. But some of the most important lessons had very little to do with riding a bicycle.

They were about purpose, ego, recovery, routine, and learning to listen.

Here are my biggest lessons:

I. Decide Why You’re Riding Before You Start

Before beginning a long ride, ask yourself a simple question:

What is important to me about this experience?

Is it mileage? Speed? Sightseeing? Adventure? Meeting people? Experiencing different parts of the country? Learning something about yourself?

There isn’t a correct answer. But you should have an answer.

Because if you don’t define success for yourself, someone or something will define it for you.

People you meet who aren’t on the ride will inevitably ask:

“How many miles have you ridden?”

“How many miles do you ride every day?”

Mileage is easy to understand and easy to measure. But mileage isn’t necessarily the best measurement of an adventure.

If your purpose is experiencing the country and connecting with people, riding farther and faster might actually take you away from what you came to experience.

Define what success means to you before you start pedaling.

II. Your Body Always Gets a Vote.

Everyone tells you to “listen to your body.”

And that’s good advice, but the problem is that sometimes we’re listening to our ego instead.

Your ego says:

“I should be able to ride 60 miles today.”

Your body says:

“I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep well. My legs are heavy. I need to recover.”

Your ego worries about falling behind, appearing weak, or not accomplishing enough.

Your body isn’t interested in any of that. It’s simply reporting current conditions.

If you’re tired, you’re tired.

There is nothing heroic about ignoring that information.

Determination can keep you moving long after your ability to recover has started deteriorating. Eventually, your body will make the decision for you.

III. Rest and Recovery Are Part of the Ride

One of the hardest lessons for an endurance-minded person to accept is that recovery isn’t something separate from the adventure.

Recovery is part of the adventure.

If you need a rest day but feel guilty about taking one, that’s probably your ego talking again.

Rest isn’t a reward you earn after riding enough miles. It’s what makes tomorrow’s miles possible.

On a multi-day ride, you aren’t simply riding for today. You’re constantly preparing your body for tomorrow.

Today’s hydration becomes tomorrows hydration.

Today’s nutrition becomes tomorrows energy.

Tonight’s sleep becomes tomorrows legs.

The question isn’t simply:

“Can I ride another 20 miles?”

A better question might be:

“What will those 20 miles cost me tomorrow?”

IV. Establish a Rhythm

At the beginning of my ride I developed a simple routine:

Wake. Eat. Plan. Ride. Refuel. Hydrate. Rest. Sleep. Recover. Then repeat.

That rhythm became incredibly important.

When you’re riding day after day, your body is constantly being asked to adapt. A predictable routine gives it an opportunity to settle into the workload.

Constantly changing your schedule, sleep, eating patterns, and recovery makes your body continually adjust to something new.

Routine also reduces decision fatigue.

There are already enough decisions on a long ride: weather, navigation, traffic, mechanical problems, food, water, camping, and changing conditions.

A good routine removes unnecessary decisions and preserves your mental energy for the ones that matter.

V. Listen to More Than Your Legs

Listening to your body isn’t limited to muscle soreness.

Your body communicates in many ways.

Fatigue. Hunger. Thirst. Heavy legs. Poor sleep. Irritability. Anxiety. Loss of motivation. Mental fog. Cravings.

Here’s where you need to pay attention.

Even something as simple as craving salty food may be useful information. Your body may be telling you something about what it needs.

Your nervous system is part of your body.

If you find yourself increasingly anxious, irritable, mentally exhausted, or dreading something you previously enjoyed, don’t automatically dismiss those feelings as weakness.

They are information.

The challenge is learning the difference between ordinary discomfort that accompanies adaptation and signals telling you something needs to change.

That distinction becomes clearer with experience.

VI. Conditions Get a Vote

You can create a wonderful plan before leaving home. Then the ride begins.

Weather changes. Heat arrives. Headwinds appear. Sleep deteriorates. Roads become uncomfortable. Equipment breaks. Your body responds differently than expected. Life outside the ride continues happening.

Suddenly the original plan doesn’t fit the conditions you’re actually experiencing.

A good plan provides direction without becoming a prison.

• Sometimes the strongest decision isn’t pushing forward.

• Sometimes it’s resting.

• Sometimes it’s changing the route.

• Sometimes it’s shortening the day.

And sometimes it’s pausing and reconsidering the entire plan.

Changing the plan doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve failed. It means you’ve finally started listening.

VII. Don’t Perform the Adventure

There is another trap that’s easy to fall into on a big adventure.

You start performing it for other people.

You think about the mileage you’ll report, the photograph you’ll post, the accomplishment you’ll describe, or what people will think if you don’t finish.

Eventually, you can become so concerned about the story you’re going to tell that you stop experiencing the adventure you’re actually living.

That’s when the adventure begins turning into a performance.

The most meaningful moments weren’t the biggest mileage days.

They were conversations.

Unexpected kindness.

Small towns.

People I never would have met otherwise.

Quiet moments when nothing spectacular was happening.

Those experiences don’t show up on a cycling computer, and you can’t plan them.

Mileage tells you how far you traveled. Encounters tell you something about where you’ve been.

VIII. Pay Attention

This is the biggest lesson the ride taught me.

A long-distance bicycle journey isn’t simply a test of how far you can pedal.

It’s an extended exercise in paying attention.

• Pay attention to your body.

• Pay attention to your energy.

• Pay attention to your surroundings.

• Pay attention to the people you meet.

• Pay attention to changing conditions.

• Pay attention to the difference between determination and ego.

And occasionally ask yourself the same question you asked before you started:

What is important to me about this ride?

Because the quality of an adventure isn’t determined solely by how hard you can push.

It’s determined by how well you can pay attention.

Before the ride, decide what matters. During the ride, keep listening closely enough to know whether you’re still living by it.