For those of you who’ve read my past few newsletters, you know I’m one week into a three week bicycling trip in Mallorca, Spain.
Berk (my Partner) and I chose Mallorca for this trip because it’s known as a fantastic place for two-wheeled explorations. The bike routes can be flat, steep and everything in between. The island has a mountainous northern coast and we love climbing the sweeping switchbacks and taking in the immense sea views.
There are also LOTS of other cyclists here so we ride with crowds of other riders frequently. Riding close to someone you don’t know really makes you pay attention. When I was in a bike club in Connecticut (where I met Berk) we had hundreds of members and we’d break our rides up into smaller groups based on speed and ability.
Berk and I were often in the same group, which typically had about 18 men, just one other woman, and me. When you ride in a group, it’s really important to “hold your line”. This means you ride very steady at a consistent speed in a straight line, with your front wheel close to the back wheel of the rider in front of you. You don’t want whomever is in front of you to suddenly swerve or brake or do something unexpected (there’s also a whole language of hand gestures and vocal commands that keeps everyone in the group on the same page).
The worst thing you can be called in a group of riders is “squirrely.” That means you ride erratically and no one wants to be near you. While I’ve been riding here in a foreign country, I don’t know who’s squirrely so I really have to pay attention and hold my line.
One of the many things I love about riding is the combination of focus, athleticism and enjoyment of nature that it offers. If you let the mind (or your bike) drift for even a second there could be a crash. When I’m riding a lot, this mental sharpness spills into my work and daily activities. I’m a more mentally tuned-in human being.
Napoleon Hill, an American self-help author wrote about a conversation with the devil. His wife thought the book too controversial so he didn’t publish it. It was finally published 70 years later, after his death.
The book is about the human psyche, fear and faith. When we stop striving for our dreams and goals because of fear we’re drifting, and those habitually do that are called Drifters.
“Tell me all of the tricks by which you enter and control their minds”. The devil replied, “My greatest weapon over human beings is that I established the habit of drifting.”
When I have some space and it’s just Berk and I on the open roads here, I think about Hill’s words. Maybe you could say I’m drifting.
The book was written in 1938 and we use the word drifting slightly differently now.
Which is why I ponder Hill’s choice of words. Hill asserts Drifters let themselves be tossed around in life and allow “externals” such as fear to dominate their minds. When your mind has fearful thoughts, you can act erratically, regardless of whether the thoughts are true.
When I rode in the same group week after week in CT, the other riders became my friends. I noticed that squirrely people weren’t just squirrely on the bike. You could potentially call them drifters: aimlessly pushed around by society and circumstances and life’s winds and storms. I would never know if they were suddenly going to break out of a pace line, just like I didn’t know if they would show up for our lunch date later in the week.
I tend to trust the people who aren’t squirrely, both on and off the bike.
I can also see and feel my own tendencies to drift, squirrel, lose focus, space out and miss deadlines. Worse than other people not trusting me, when I do this, I can’t trust myself.
It’s ironic: me taking a vacation to reflect on holding my line… but vacations provide space and perspective and sometimes that comes from drifting a little.
Just not on the bike off a cliff.
