The Spoke Tension Shift: More Intentional Rides, More Personal Stories

Recently, I went for a long ride. It had been a while since I had spent that many hours on a bike. Over the course of the ride, I was having some fun moments, but there was one thing that I kept thinking about—wouldn't I be having more fun if we didn't need to cover so much ground?

Being in the saddle for a long day of riding is a guaranteed way to make some memories. For a long time, I thought these memories were only to be experienced if I was covering a long distance or trying to ride fast. However, my perspective has changed. Recently, I'm starting to believe that the characteristic of a ride that is most closely tied to how many memorable experiences there are is its duration, not the actual distance traveled. This makes sense to me because the more time spent riding, the more opportunities there are to experience something.

With this new theory, the implication is that a 10-hour ride has the same amount of fun potential whether you are riding 75 miles or 150 miles. In fact, upon reflecting on my rides, the slower-paced ones can often be even more enjoyable because they allow for more: more conversations, more smelling the roses, more snack breaks, and a more positive mindset.

One of the biggest things that has led me to this conclusion is my long-time partner, Izzy's, new interest in cycling. Over the years, I have always given Izzy the opportunity to bike, and in some moments, I probably pushed it too hard on her. But this year has been a big breakthrough for her when it comes to biking. This summer, we have been getting out on our bikes in the most free moments we've had together and truly having fun.

At first, one of my big hurdles preventing us from going down this path was that I was having a hard time with the short rides that come with someone who is just starting their biking journey. In my head, I was always thinking, "Is it worth going through all the effort of getting the bikes ready, loading them in the car, driving to the trail, etc., just for a 5 or 10-mile ride?" In hindsight, this train of thought was only getting in the way of the enjoyable experience of sharing one of the things that I love most with the person that I love most. Once I stopped worrying about how far we were riding, I was able to enjoy the rides so much more.

Lately, I have been bringing this same mindset to all of my rides, and I have realized that I care much less about how far or how fast I ride. Most of this is that I have been more intentional about what I want to get out of cycling, and the rest comes from the fact that I have done some hard rides that I am proud of in the past. I feel like I have little left to prove to myself or others in regards to how hard or fast my rides are.

In regards to these posts and Spoke Tension, you have probably noticed that I took a break from writing the five-times-a-week posts that I have been doing. I started writing posts at that rate with the goal of pushing myself to write a lot and hopefully improve, and it has been a success at both of these things. Similar to my cycling, I am going to start being more intentional about the stories that I write and only put out the pieces which I am more excited about. Furthermore, the pieces that I like writing the most and have gotten the best feedback on are the more personal, narrative-based stories, so I am going to double down on that moving forward. This means the main focus of the content may be shifting from bike industry news to a more general, bike-focused content.

Finally, another thing that I have been thinking about over this last week is that this fall I would like to produce a small, limited-run print magazine in time for the UCI World Cup that is being hosted here in September. I think this would be a really fun project full of learning experiences. The focus of the magazine would be trying to capture the experience of biking in the Adirondacks. I've looked around online, and I have found some places that have good reviews and are affordable to print something like this. I haven't committed 100% yet, but I am definitely interested. With this being said, if you or anyone you know wants to write something for this or has photos/art that they would like to include in this, please reach out. Likewise, I also want to make Spoketension.com more collaborative, so if you want to write something and need a place to put it, please reach out.