DeadGrandpa

I finished my first tour a week ago, and was disappointed it was over. Now at home, I am feeling lethargic and house chores aren't giving me that 'satisfied with productivity' kind of feeling. Colder and inclement weather is not helping my training schedule. Is this a normal thing, feeling withdrawal from the trip?

jwarner

I feel this every time I come back from tour, off a mountain, or hang the kayaks up again. Used to even feel this when I came back from long crappy deployments in the army. It will pass. Planning the next adventure seems to help.

gpsblake

Thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail go through the same thing, "now that it's over, now what???"

Some just continue to hike year after year.

350htrr

Start to plan the next trip... Works for me.

gif4445

Sounds like a bad combination. I get that feeling after a tour and also when the cold weather hits. You got the double whammy. I spend a decent amount of my free time on Crazyguyonabike getting ideas for the next tour. Otherwise I keep busy and try to keep in reasonable shape for next season.

hilltowner

Hey, how can a guy in Carolina complain about being off the bike because of colder and inclement weather? What about us in New England, or especially those poor guys in Buffalo? It's all relative I guess.

jamawani 

Crazyguy is a good way to get new and crazy ideas - or take imaginary tours.
And with the holidays coming up - volunteering at a nearby food pantry or soup kitchen always helps.

BigAura

I see people falling into four camps:

1. dream about touring and then never go through with it
2. start their tour and realize it's not what they imaged
3. happy to have done a tour and checked off that bucket item
4. enjoyed their tour and ready for more!!!

It sounds like you're a four, like me

Machka 

Yes ... I have the same let down whenever I finish anything that has required some planning, preparation, effort, etc. I first felt it when I graduated high school and I've felt it at the end of all my certificates, diplomas, and degrees. I've felt it when I finished large projects at work. And of course, I've felt it at the end of cycling tours.


What can help is to have something else to look forward to, and to prepare for that in the last week or two of your tour (or day or two, if your tour is short). When I was wrapping up my 3-month tour of Australia, I started making lists of what I needed to do to prepare for my next uni degree. I did go through a bit of the let down when I got home that time, but quite quickly I needed to get busy with uni preparations so I had something to focus on.

What can also help is to do something like joining a gym and doing some cross training ... something different from the usual training routine.

DeadGrandpa

Originally I was kind of planning to bike the Trace both ways, but one way took longer than expected, and as I approached Natchez and night time lows descended to the low 20's in Mississippi, my 3-season camping gear was perhaps sufficient but not comfortable. And rain was forecast; I had biked 30 miles in the rain one day on the way south, temp around 50. It was fun, but any longer or any colder and the fun would have disappeared. Also, we got a warm place to stay that night and dried out. Motel touring is fine but it does get expensive.

As for you fellers in New England, I have never understood the Yankee predilection to live where winter is so long and miserable. Maybe it's just where you grew up? Even the Canadians have the good sense to drive way south for the winter. I was hoping that the Global Warming/Climate Change was going to rescue you all, but it looks like that's a false hope. Sorry, got political or religious there. My bad.

Besides, I'm not off the bike; training rides are still fine here at home when it's not raining, but they don't invigorate like tour riding. I guess that is more or less equivalent to complaining about sour apples to someone who has none.

Papa Tom

My "tours" are only an overnight or two at this stage in my life, as I still work full-time and have 2 or 3 community projects going at any given time. The build-up to these tours, however, is probably just as long and intense as if I were hitting the road for a month, so yes..DEFINITELY, the letdown is hard.

As others have said, I try to jump immediately into another project, another hobby, or the planning of my next tour. You might even try writing a log of your most recent trip, which will give you a chance to relive it a few times.

krobinson103

Longest tour I've done was 3 days From Busan to Seoul in South Korea. We did 650km in 3 days so the first few days afterwards I was too tired to really think about it! But, after my legs felt like functioning I was itching to do something again. Planning a 14 day tour of New Zealand in just over a week. Right after that a year at grad school. Staying busy is the thing I think. Rather like stopping too long on a ride... you take time to get moving again.

hilltowner

+1 to that (and all facetiousness aside I feel your pain. I too experience a letdown when the tour ends.)

Machka 

For the next couple months, don't do "training rides", do "day tours".

Go to your local tourist information centre and gather info about the touristy stuff in your area ... then spend at least one day each weekend cycling to those places. Put a bag on the back of the bicycle, pack a lunch, and make a whole day of it. If the weekend looks like it will be nice, put your panniers etc. on the bicycle and do an overnight tour somewhere.


Sometimes we go further afield looking for interesting things to see and do, and miss the stuff we've got in our own backyards.


BTW - when I came back from my Australian tour in 2004, it was at the end of December and I went from the balmy +40 temps of Queensland to frozen Alberta. I got off the plane and it was -27C. Fortunately, my parents were there to meet me with a warm parka and blankets. I spent the first couple weeks curled up in blankets, and hardly stuck a toe outside.

saddlesores

you gotta look at things differently. it's not that the tour is over, but that something
else/different will soon begin. but you also need a bridge between the two. you need
a short period of relaxation and recuperation and general laziness.

i like to take a full weekend (or sometimes a week....or two) and be a lazy slob.
buy a bunch of junk food, a case of beer, and rent/download/borrow a couple dozen
dvd's. close the blinds, put on your comfy undies (the ones with holes and stains),
draw the curtains. turn off the phone, don't answer the door (unless is domino's).

nothing cerebral. get the simpson's box set (all 75 seasons!), or the star trek
collection (the REAL 3-season star trek, not the boldly going nowhere ripoffs),
or the matrix trilogy, or the lord of the rings, and all the space ghost episodes.
......or all of the above.

order a couple pizzas and some chinese food. you've earned it.

Lou Skannon

You hear a lot about " It's the journey that matters not the destination." Are suffering from an extension of this? A bit like Forrest Gump running to the ocean and then turning round and running back because he doesn't have any other plan. I usually jack-in my job before I go on a big tour so when I come back I have to start somewhere fresh; this makes me concentrate on work and forget touring. But I have had periods in my life where I was addicted to touring and couldn't leave it alone; so I know how you feel. Maybe there should be more tours like the Camino where you get stamps on your passport and a certificate at the end; at least you come away with something achieved. Writing a blog is also good therapy.

DeadGrandpa

Funny you should suggest that. One of my training rides takes me to the Reed Gold Mine, which was the first gold mine in Carolina way back when. I have never gone inside to see the tourist display, or wanted to. For me, it's all about the pedaling and the scenery on either side of the road. It's about revving my engine to max and holding it there to the top of the hill, and seeing what the other side of the hill has to offer. Places where people gather are of little interest, nor are the pictures I take to send to family to let them know where I am. A riding companion on my tour got me to stop for a couple touristy places: a rock wall built over 35 years by an obsessive compulsive man as homage to one of his ancestors, and a cypress swamp complete with black water and primordial goo. Family thought the places and pictures were fascinating; I did not. I don't journal about my trip because I would never look at it; I live in the present, not the past. It's all about the ride, the whole ride, and nothing but the ride. Lou Skannon mentioned Forest Gump. Yes, Lou, it's a lot like that. Papa Tom and saddlesores suggested I jump into a project to bridge to the next tour. I'm working on it. I just noticed what a big pile of crap I've accumulated over the years, and must come up with a plan to dispose of it.

staehpj1

I really only felt that to a significant degree after my first tour (Trans America). I went through a pretty severe withdrawal after that one and didn't seem to know how to cope with daily life at home for a while. I have done a number of other longish tours without serious withdrawal.

Machka 

For me, touring ... and also cycling on the weekends etc. ... is all about going places, seeing stuff, participating in activities other than cycling ...

I spend a good portion of my cycling tours walking. Hiking up trails, walking on the beach after arriving at our destination, walking through tourist attractions or down streets with little shops.


I enjoy cycling. I wouldn't have done as much randonneuring and long distance cycling as I've done if I didn't. But a tour is different ... a tour is time to stop and smell the roses.

indyfabz

Start planning your next tour to fill the void.

Jim from Boston

On our cross-country honeymoon tour in 1977, as I recall, there was a sense of letdown, but not much time to dwell on it as we now arrived in Boston to start new jobs and life in a new city. Our short period of laziness was three days in Washington DC (our destination) before taking the train to Boston.

There also was a minor let-down as we left the West after the Rocky Mountains since the California and Arizona deserts, and Colorado mountains were such exotic environments for two lifelong Midwesterners who were now descending into more familiar terrain.

Walter S

Last year when I returned from my tour I was struck by how meaningless and pointless home life is. I walked around my place and found it all to be so wasteful and excessive. The house, the yard, a whole room full of implements for making food (called a "kitchen").

I loved my small and simple world living on the bicycle. Carrying everything I need with me on the road. Having a house seemed so excessive and self-justifying. For example, who needs a lawn mower and implements for pruning unless you have a yard? Who needs a vacume cleaner without carpet? I missed my life on the road, where all of the fixtures of life that I acquire, maintain, and keep up with, are a small set of purpose-felt items related to food, shelter, and travel and entirely adequate to keep me satisfied and gratified in my daily adventure.

Lone

need a vacation from your vacation.

bikenh

Why would we need rescued. Some people just need to learn you can always put more clothes but you can only take so many clothes off to make you feel better. I rode 84+ miles each of the past two days and plan on another 75-80 each of the next two days. You just need big enough goals to make you get out and enjoy perfect weather in New England during the winter months. I have 12 inches of snow on the ground around here right now and it doesn't stop me from riding. I'm not a cry baby, I get out and ride anyways. I have the challenge right now of trying to ride 365 consecutive days. I've only had two days off the from August 15, 2013 through today. No days off the bike, no indoor riding either, from February 5, 2014 through today. Give yourself big enough challenges and you'll also give yourself the motivation to make them happen...no matter what the weather is.

Jim from Boston

Well said, Walter S. But now I am (happily) pinned down in a relatively stable, not “meaningless and pointless” home life where I enjoy the relative permanence of family, friends, and meaningful work. I now enjoy those “wasteful and excessive” amenities.

Nonetheless I’m forever thankful for that opportunity to have for two months lived that small and simple, yet exciting world living on the bicycle.