patentcad

“Pain is temporary...If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”

Not necessarily. Ask some people who ever tried to quit smoking. Or even BF for that matter.

surgeonstone

Wrong, pcads posts clearly require no thought.

patentcad

At least you got that right Fredly.

surgeonstone

Me? A fred? Are you out of your greek frikin mind? Just because I wear wool, have hairy legs,ride a Merlin, ride with a rear light flashing during during the day and have a frame pump does not a fred make.

patentcad

I haven't used a frame pump in 20 years. And I broke my Merlin in two places. I ascribe it to my mighty guads. I left it out with the trash in 1997.

BarryJo

I disagree, I think he's constantly working on new material with every pedal stroke.

surgeonstone

That's just so sad, the Merlin I mean, with the trash? The thing had a SOUL man, at least a decent burial would have been in order.

surgeonstone

And I disagree with your disagreeing.

patentcad

It had two cracks, one in the right chain stay, one in the down tube. My Ibis Ti Road is 10x better than that stupid bike anyway. And it remains un-cracked these many years later.

chado445510

Only when I start out after not riding for a day or two. I feel so fast, and effortless, but then I realize I'm going 15mph and my HR is quickly rising. then it's just playing the catch up game.

davout

When the effort is no effort .
“Only this moment is life”

justadude

I believe my zen moment occurs around the time my hormones and endorphins, etc., go BOOM!BOOM!POW!, physiologically.

cyclezen

When I'm ready to start a ride, I lift the rear wheel, give it a spin, and watch and listen as it goes around. If I'm lucky, it starts 'the moment' for me. If I'm lucky I'll have plenty of moments on that ride when I'm not projecting ahead; when however I feel, however the bike moves, however the environment seems - is all right there.
If I'm lucky...

hooligancyclist

Far out, man.

hooligancyclist

I was racing down the coast, along a 132 mile, 14,500' ride. Training. Almost all of it was solo. The rain came down for five and a half hours of the ride. My fingers were cold, they hurt as did my toes. I may have been shivering, but none of it was of concern to me. It was no longer suffering, my mind did not pay heed to what my body was telling me, and I rode along in a trance, stuck with a smile for hours, doing just enough to ride along and not crash. Despite the conditions, I realized there was nowhere else I wanted to be and all I had to be was present.

patentcad

I will presume the 'boom' are the endorphins and the 'pow' is the subsequent fredjaculation after the hormones kick in.

DeadheadSF

Maybe it's my meditation experience, maybe I've just been to too many concerts where there might have been something in the kool-aid, but:

It's those precious few opportunities to be on a stretch of open road after a good warm-up when everything syncs up and you're totally aware of the moment. What happened yesterday doesn't matter - yesterday doesn't exist right now. What may happen tomorrow doesn't matter - tomorrow doesn't exist right now. And you're aware of every blade of grass and dimple in the asphalt and cloud in the sky and the whole "scene" just syncs up. It is meditation and medication.

Of course, my luck being as it is, when I reach that zen-like state, a bee invariably flies into my helmet.

patentcad

Cycling in Greece over a few summers in an agricultural area where honey making and bee-keeping are a primary product, I've been stung by bees on my road bike many times. That's not so bad. What's far worse was the one time I was on my motorcycle (I wear a full face helmet, but in warmer weather I ride with sunglasses to shield my eyes and the face shield raised) and a bee flew into my helmet as I was blasting up a country road @ 60 mph. As I felt the bee inside next to my head struggling to get out, I had to consciously tell myself to stay calm and get over to the road side and NOT TO PANIC in the likely event I was about to get stung. I managed to do so, quickly killed the motor and got the helmet yanked off. The bee flew away. Scared the crap out of me.

JustinHorne

You probably have more self control than I do, I'm reasonably sure. I'm sure I can imagine that conscious "You must NOT panic" instant reaction, but I don't know how my mind would've reacted to being forced to relax during the moment. Really, that must've been awful.

patentcad

I quickly did the math, and crashing the motorcycle struck me as 100x worse than a bee sting.

Max C.

When I'm traveling down Hill St. in Downtown LA and going faster than the traffic.

thehammerdog

My Zen Moment is either when I am fit and climbing like Marco P. spinning high RPMs standing as I fly up a hill with the words of Phil Ligget "he climbs as if he is dancing upon his pedals" running through my head....with the accent.
That and driving a paceline at 27 mph and feeling fine.....Zen

Scorer75

There is a moment when riding in the rain, it is no longer cold, the drops no longer sting, u don't feel the squishing in your shoes, where my legs literally slide along the sides of the top tube with every stroke.......awesome

2ndGen

Thread redemption.

2ndGen

For me, my "moment" is when the first stroke of the pedals that I'm fully clipped in and I'm underway.
That first forceful push downstroke and it's nirvana. I tell myself before I ride "warm up a bit",
but noooooo...I start hammering right away, get my heart rate up to max and then find a comfortable
pace for the day. Still, that first stroke never changes for me. It's still pretty darn cool.