Biking To Work Vs. Biking

I love riding a bike. I ride a bike almost every day. I love riding a bike. Yesterday I took the LHT (yeah you know me) on a grocery run. It was beautiful out and as I said before I really do love riding a bike. I was feeling good so I threw a few more errands into the trip. Taking shortcuts through the neighborhoods surrounding downtown Silver Spring, I was able to avoid the main roads which are no fun. I hit the grocery store and with panniers stuffed full of food I headed home. The whole trip was pretty uneventful.

After a few hours of puttering around the house and playing with my daughter, my wife said "Oh, so how was your ride?". I had to stop and think. How was my ride? I honestly couldn't remember. I could clearly see myself at the bank and the grocery but I had no memory of the ride.

My first thought was, "Shit, has riding a bike become as mundane as driving a car?" I quickly dismissed the thought because it was silly. What lingered was the desire to do some more recreation oriented cycling. I need to get mountain biking and fast. There is a big difference in your state of mind between riding your bike to work and riding your bike to see where the trail leads.

I have been pretty busy as of late. Whenever I get an invitation to ride with a friend I usually decline because there is so much crap to do on the weekends. My friends give me shit about it and rightfully so. I justify this shit by thinking  "It's ok, I ride my bike every day and that's a hell of a lot more than my friends do." Which is true, being able to ride to work is great. I can't really put into words how bike commuting has improved my life, but at the end of the journey I'm at work and that kind of a ride shouldn't be in place of actual cycling, you know... for fun.