Getting wet is good for you

Posted by Neil on 08/09/2009 under commuting | Be the First to Comment

What I am about to write may be difficult to grasp at first, it has taken me a while to get my head around it. My first serious cycling in about 10 years has proven one thing to me; the British weather is not entirely compatible with commuting by bike. Arriving anywhere looking at your best is often difficult and sometimes impossible. For someone who is contemplating selling his car and carrying on running a business, this is an issue.

For the first few weeks of the summer I did quite well. Every time I seemed to need to go anywhere the sky would clear and off I would go. I knew it wouldn’t last and it didn’t. Having made the decision to make the bicycle my main mode of transport, commuting in the rain was going to be an issue sooner of later that had to be dealt with.

My test came one afternoon on my commute home. All wrapped up in the best wet weather gear I had (at the time), I set off into a drenching headwind. An hour later, saturated to the skin, I arrived home with a big smile on my face. Why so happy after being slowly and methodically soaked? Here is what I worked out.

In the modern car worshipping society that I live in, routinely getting wet to the skin doesn’t happen. Protected from the realities of weather in our glass and steel, climate controlled cockpits, the real world gets filtered out.

For the hour I battled along, all my senses filled with the simple task of getting home in one piece. My slow movement, 12 miles across the surface of the earth with its associated effort and discomfort was a simple stress buster. Normally, the commute from work, car powered and effortless, allows my mind to stay engaged on the work agenda, still churning over the problems of the day. During my ride home all this disappears, my whole body is engaged with the task of getting there: pedalling becomes a rhythmic physical mantra. Cycling is meditation.

I found this quote on Wikipedia attributed to Paul de Vivie, the father of French bicycle touring:

After a long day on my bicycle, I feel refreshed, cleansed, purified. I feel that I have established contact with my environment and that I am at peace. On days like that I am permeated with a profound gratitude for my bicycle. Even if I did not enjoy riding, I would still do it for my peace of mind. What a wonderful tonic to be exposed to bright sunshine, drenching rain, choking dust, dripping fog, rigid air, punishing winds! I will never forget the day I climbed the Puy Mary. There were two of us on a fine day in May. We started in the sunshine and stripped to the waist. Halfway, clouds enveloped us and the temperature tumbled. Gradually it got colder and wetter, but we did not notice it. In fact, it heightened our pleasure. We did not bother to put on our jackets or our capes, and we arrived at the little hotel at the top with rivulets of rain and sweat running down our sides. I tingled from head to foot.

So why the smile?

• A simple statement of achievement in overcoming difficulty.
• A demonstration of my own self reliance.
• Satisfaction I feel at not needing £10,000.00’s worth of metal and its associated expense to get me all that way.
• A body awash with endorphins.

Where I live, the car is considered an essential by lots of people I know. Moving from one location to the next is an effortless act with traffic jams and speed cameras the only irritation. You have no feel for the scenery moving past your window, the land moving under your seat. You are disconnected from your own physical landscape; insulated from its realities.

Ride your bike and get wet (now and again); it is good for you.