Seek the Interesting, Stay a Cyclist

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

“My motivation comes and goes.”

That’s what the cyclist said in response to me saying I hadn’t seen him on the roads in quite a while. While I don’t know the guy well, I know him well enough to ride aside of him and chat for a bit if we’re both out and about and clearly not going hard. But this guy was always going hard and always motivated years ago when I first rode with and against him on a Sunday morning training ride that every serious trackie and roadie in our area not racing that day seemed to do at that time.

Reminiscing about those rides led me to ask him about a kid who did them for just one year from about New Year’s Day to Labor Day. In that time, the kid got whiz kid good. Went from not being able to hold your wheel come crunch time to riding you off of his anytime he felt the mood.

And then he just vanished from the cycling scene.

What Happened to the Whiz Kid?

My one-time rival told me exactly what happened. The whiz kid’s desire to ride disappeared. He became a big, fat couch potato quickly and a half-hearted runner eventually once he started hating what he was seeing in the mirror. Who’s to say why he didn’t try biking again? Anyway, my old foe did say what precipitated the monumental motivational drain.

A riding routine that was absolutely insane.

A work co-op during his final high school semester allowed him to ride on weekday afternoons. He found some part-time pros doing the same, tagged along as best he could, and really benefitted from that. Then he graduated from high school and decided to outdo them.

Instead of following his high school’s tradition of spending the next week at the shore, he followed a plan probably created by some performance-enhanced Euro Pro and rode 450 miles. But that’s not what burned him out. That only made him faster — and more foolish. He started doing 70 miles on Wednesday mornings, napping in the afternoons, and then riding the Wednesday evening version of the Sunday ride previously mentioned. Nothing like a 120-mile day in the middle of a week to get you ready for a weekend of racing.

All sarcasm aside, it actually did get him ready for a while.  He won more than his fair share of Cat 3 races before falling off the face of the cycling Earth. Which is something I never want to do, and I imagine you don’t ever want to do either. So let’s forget about ever doing a single training week that tallies 450 miles or two rides on Wednesdays.

But let’s never forget the words of my one-time rival. That his motivation comes and goes, and when it goes, he’s not going riding.

While that’s the way it normally works, it need not work that way for you. You just need to keep your riding interesting.

To Maintain Motivation, Keep Your Cycling Interesting

Now let’s be clear about a few things here. The subhead above is certainly not the most original statement you’ve ever read. Moreover, the phrasing only came to me while I was reading a book written by a PhD. And the book’s not even about cycling but “living your best possible life.” So what comes next, in essence, is a cycling veteran’s advice to you after he’s gotten a good dose of it from Lorraine Besser by way of The Art of Interesting: What We Miss in Our Pursuit of the Good Life and How to Cultivate It (Hatchet Book Group, 2024).

With that said, consider this. That the typical view of what cycling’s supposed to do for you is a bit misguided. That you shouldn’t be cycling to seek happiness, pleasure, or even fulfillment. Though that is not to say you won’t experience all three while pedaling from time to time.

What it is to say is that all three of those emotions are short-lived and elusive — and get even more so when you seek them out. So what you should really be seeking is what Besser calls “the interesting.”

Not a How-To Next, Just an Interesting Experience

But a how-to on how to seek the interesting while cycling will not come next, just an interesting experience. For I believe something Besser believes and makes clear by her view on books in general. That there’s no single one we all find interesting because a book’s a thing and “no thing is inherently interesting. What’s interesting is all about how we experience a thing.”

So let me share a six-month cycling experience with a thing. That thing is indoor virtual riding, and I know exactly what you’re thinking. This guy’s a little late to the game.

A Little Late to the Game? For Sure

While there are a number of reasons for my late start, a big one Besser mentions in her book. That our minds are “full of beliefs and expectations built from past experiences” and are “less open” as we age. Since I had gotten good results in the past from riding my circa 1999 indoor trainer and am now 64, I kept doing so. I thought forsaking high-tech made me hardcore, but what it really made me was comfortable, mentally lazy, and to eventually lose my motivation to ride indoors.

So I finally accepted the gracious offer of a Wahoo Kickr Smart Trainer (thanks, again Boss), used the cycling app Rouvy in conjunction, and, lo and behold, did I ever find it motivating.

But climbing 4711 feet in 11.94 miles to reach the summit of the Col du Tourmalet in France is not pleasurable — though using the 12.43 mile descent in to Khau Pha in Vietnam after that as a cooldown generally is. And completing the 21.25 miles and 4734 feet of climbing of the Furka Pass in Switzerland only leads to happiness and a feeling of fulfillment if I set PRs in FTP and average power, the odds of which are lessening because I’ve done the route so often — and am not getting any younger.

The whole package, however — creating a plan to regain some of the pedaling power I’ve lost from age and five really serious cycling injuries, selecting that day’s ride or rides, competing at times against real and virtual adversaries — I’m finding pretty damn interesting.

According to Besser, interesting experiences are what’s needed to live a “psychologically rich life.” This specific one has certainly enriched my time turning the pedals both inside and outside the house.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.