Bicycle ADHD
Sometimes people ask me ‘how do you find time to ride so many bikes?’ The answer is: with difficulty. But my Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder means I prioritize bicycles over everything else, so I fit it all in. It also means that I frequently can’t sleep at night because I can’t stop thinking about whichever kind of riding it is I’m currently obsessed with…
But these obsessions are short lived. You see, I also seem to be afflicted with Bicycle ADHD, so I flit between cycles like a floozy, unable to focus on one kind of riding for any great period of time.
The two together have resulted in an unstoppable compulsion to ride all kinds of bikes as much as possible – one minute it’s all about the mountain bike, the next I just want to ride my track bike on the velodrome. The slightly unfortunate result of this is that I never get as good as I want to at riding anything!
This week’s in-depth focus happened to be mountain biking, so after riding the Forest of Dean with Dave, first XC then switching to the full face to hit a load of jumps and do my first ever road gap, I’m now wondering whether I should change last week’s plan of entering some fixed gear crits and instead just spend a shit load of time riding mountain bikes, enter another Enduro, or possibly get a jump bike? How fast could I go if I just focused on mountain bikes?
Actually, sod speed, how big a gap could I hit if I only rode mountain bikes? Jumps are my absolute favourite, and it took someone else to point out that they’re the common thread linking all the activities I’ve ever been fascinated by – I’ve been seeking out ways to get airborne ever since I was a kid encouraging ponies to leap over striped poles a foot above the ground, then I switched to snowboards, skateboard, bicycles..
So today, I’m honestly not sure whether anything is as much fun as riding mountain bikes, but who knows, I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow as my obsessions are extreme but ever changing. I’ll eternally be a jack of all trades, and master of none as I hop from bike to bike to bike, and sometimes I do wish I wasn’t so afflicted with this bicycle ADHD and could focus more on one thing at a time. But hey, I’m having a lot of fun!
Comments (1)