For the first time in entirely too long I got out for a good, long bike ride yesterday. It has been a hot summer in Colorado, and with a handful of other life things going on, windows for outdoor recreation have been sparse. So yesterday I was grateful for an open calendar, cool weather and clear skies.
I left my house early and I could feel a hint of summer retreating in the cool air. A little preview of the fall weather just around the corner. I clipped my shoes into the petals and settled into the saddle. The familiar feel of the cockpit. I pedaled down my street and hopped on the bike path. Driving a vehicle through town you don’t see other people, you see other cars. And it shows in people’s behavior. On a bike, you see the rider coming, headed in the opposite direction. You might make brief eye contact. Maybe a quick wave or a hello. The interaction usually lasts a fraction of a second, but it’s something and you see a person, not a machine.
I make my way across town. Gently gaining elevation, heading West to where the sea of flatness that makes up all land East of here for 1000 miles or more gives way abruptly to the Rocky Mountains. The foothills of Colorado’s Front Range. Town ends where the mountains begin, I work my way along Boulder Creek and follow it up the canyon that it has carved. Steep and winding. I stop briefly at a bridge and look down into the clear water bubbling over the rocks. I spot a few trout feeding in the current. Hiding in the shade of the bridge.
I diverge from the creek here, making my way up a side canyon for several miles until the pavement ends. Here the path gets very steep and I feel the sudden transition to gravel. I drop down a couple gears and settle into the long, sustained climb. I feel a little winded at first, but I push through it and eventually my heart and my legs and my lungs all find their rhythm and my brain goes quiet. This is my favorite part about long, slow climbs on a bike. After pushing through the initial discomfort the body falls into a “runner’s high” and the climb begins to feel like more of a quiet meditation. The exertion is there, but you feel slightly removed from the suffering and the brain is free to think and wander beyond your physical situation. As I reach the top, I take a few breaths and take in the view before starting the fast and exhilarating descent back down to town. With my hub screaming and the wind whipping across my body, my brain goes immediately into a very different place. Drinking up adrenaline, hyper focused on the present moment, scanning my surroundings and the terrain in front of my wheels.
As I make my way back into town, I have a thought that has crossed my mind many times before after similar excursions. That the bicycle must be one of humanity’s greatest inventions. A bike is a machine that transforms your own human energy into an efficient mode of transportation. Mechanically a bike has a minimalistic simplicity, elegant, almost poetic in its design. Every piece has an intuitive function. It requires virtually no inputs, emits no emissions, and can serve you for decades with a just bit of simple maintenance. By using a bike, you will become healthier and stronger and actually enjoy the process of becoming so. It is one of the only truly guilt free pieces of technology that I can think of.
Sure, the world is full of many incredible advancements that have meaningfully improved human existence. There are many medical and technological miracles that are better suited for the title of “humanity’s greatest invention”. However, the bike is a machine that quietly and efficiently transforms the mundane into the exciting. It’s a means of transportation that pulls us more intimately into our surroundings, rather than insulating us from them. It is a vector of human community and entertainment. It is innocent and it is fun. When it comes to the best bang for your buck, I’ll choose the bike as my pick for humanity’s greatest invention again and again.