The Best Thing You Can Do For A Passion

For the first four years that I was a competitive mountain biker, I would ride and train year round. The race season was long, stretching from as early as February until well into fall, and the weather in California allowed for year round riding. Then I moved to Colorado, where I realized it was a lot more fun to go skiing when it was cold and snowy out. 

I didn’t necessarily think about it in these terms back then, but when you take a break from something you do all the time—like bike riding—when you come back to that activity, it’s so much more exciting. 

I experienced this recently. Since I was travelling for 3.5 months, I didn’t really ride bikes at all, save for a couple of bike share rentals. I got back earlier this month and was extremely excited to go for a mountain bike ride. 

When you do something for a long time, you tend to stick to certain patterns. In the case of mountain biking, we ride the same trails over and over. We get to know the trail systems so well we could draw a map with our eyes closed, but at the same time, things can get a bit monotonous. This is certainly how I feel sometimes. 

I once heard somebody explain that it can be tough to deal with mental health problems in beautiful places, like the mountains of Colorado, because a criticism may be “How dare you feel bad when you live in a beautiful place and get to do all these amazing things.” I think that same strain of logic can be applied here. When all of your friends are cyclists and you’ve deeply embedded yourself into the culture, it can feel weird taking a break from the sport. Your friends or peers may look at you weird: “Why would you take a break, cycling is your passion.” 

But that’s exactly the point. When you take a break from something, you allow your passion to come back even stronger. You can go trail running or hiking for a bit and come back to cycling with a whole new perspective. It’s good to broaden horizons. At least that’s how it works for me.