Randybb

Last month I was halfway though a short solo tour through Georgia, and I woke up feeling a bit off, the previous day was a rough one. I checked the weather and saw 25 mph sustained winds and 40 mph gusts coming from the north. That day's route was almost completely due East, except a small jog north for about 12 miles. The whole morning, I biked east, leaning strongly to the left trying to keep the cross wind from blowing me into the ditch, just absolutely dreading the moment when I knew I'd have to turn directly into the wind. When the time came, I was already feeling a bit tired and sore, and the wind all but stopped me in my tracks. I was chugging along in my lowest hear at 7-8 mph, and grinding to a near halt when the gusts came. I had fully slipped into a super negative mindset - my face was grimaced, I had complete tunnel vision, the deafening wind was blasting in my ears was so unpleasant. I felt like giving up. But then I remembered a trick someone shared a while back, and I started trying to change my state of mind. I looked around at the scenery. "WOW THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL!" I forced myself to yell out loud. "I LOVE BIKING SOOO MUCH, THIS IS AMAZZZING" I yelled. I started singing the first song that popped into my head. I forced myself to think happy thoughts. And suddenly, it wasn't so bad anymore. I was just a guy who got to be biking outside when most people were working, just out there in beautiful scenery spinning my legs. I got to turn east again in no time.

Does anyone have any good tips or advice to keep your mental state in check when things get really rough out there?

jefnvk

Break your trip up into smaller segments. Instead of "I have 60 miles to do", think "I've got 5 miles to the next town/turn/attraction/etc", and do that over and again.

Works wonders for the first couple of longer rides in the spring for me!

Tourist in MSN

I took a very different approach one day last summer. Gale force headwind with gusts from the side. Pedaling up a steep hill into the wind I was going so slow that when the side gusts hit, it blew me several feet to the side. The road had virtually no shoulder, so did not have much room to move to the side. After being blown off the road several times on the same hill, I turned around and went a couple miles back to a campground I had passed. Made camp at 10:30 in the morning after calling it a day. Was nervous about pitching the tent as I was afraid I would bend a tent pole, but made camp anyway. Not sure how many miles I got in that day but I think less than 15. The beer I had with the pizza for lunch tasted REALLY good, I felt a lot better after that.

RoadRider4321

For the most part I'm a bike commuter. I am car-free so I rely on my bike to get me from point a to point b. Some of my rides can be a little long so I try to make the most of my time alone on my bike.

Pardon the spiritual nature of this comment but I do this now & again while riding. Moreso when I'm on a longer commute. I take time to pray & talk to my God. If I'm experiencing a windy day and the gusts are fairly bad I pray a bit to help motivate me. I know that this may sound somewhat silly to some people but it works for me.

Whatever works for you what you should do to help you at difficult moments on your rides.

Thanks for reading my comment. Have a great ride!

Clyde1820

1. The "smell the roses" thing works for me. Whether running, or cycling, or trips into the wilds, or whatever. Every trip seems to have its slow spots, or hard grinds now and then. Most times, I try to take a step back and recognize that the reason for my being there was to get out into nature and be part of it. "Roses" have thorns, sure, but looking up to smell the roses as they go by can work wonders.

2. Another easy thing, when the going's hard: drop a gear, take my time, and remember Step #1 (above).


Isn't magic, but it helps remind me what I'm doing and where I'm going ... out there for the journey, not the destination.

cdnguy

I work with the elderly and sick everyday. Reminding myself that things could be way worse or that all I will have one day are the memories that I am making right now tends to keep me going!

saddlesores

just realize you're on a bicycle tour.
it's your vacation. go have fun, dammit!

take a day off to rest and recover.
spend the day lounging in your tent reading a book.
spend the day (depending on location....) lying on the
beach or beside a river (do watch for crocs!)
spend the day wandering around town.
visit some museums or the local library.
spend the day at a local coffee shop chatting with locals.
spend the day wandering around a college campus,
impress the grrls (or boiz) with tales of your adventures.
bleeding heart types can volunteer at a soup kitchen.
how about a day at a local swimming pool!
go hiking. climb a mountain.
go on a factory tour, visit a brewery.
go bowling.
go see a movie.
spend the day at the mall.
go play putt-putt.
do the bike maintenance you've been putting off.

you really don't gotta slog through wind and rain
and dark of night.
there are no appointed rounds.

hueyhoolihan

i'll usually just call it a day at the first convenient opportunity if i find it difficult enough. no special tricks to get to that point though. i just suffer... usually a combination of bonking, cold or wet weather and unanticipated traffic or dangerous roads can do it. but never found it difficult enough to end a tour prematurely.

u235

Two things help me press on and reach goals. One is a cheap small sd card/bt speaker on my handlebar. The other is when I feel like quiting I remind myself of this quote, "Your mind will quit a thousand times before your body will". I then mentally step through a checklist of why I think my body wants to quit. Is it my breathing? Burning in my legs? Heart rate too high? Legs feel like jelly and out of sync? Any other strange pain or physical discomfort I'm not used to feeling that I can't just keep going? Almost every time none of those are real issues of actual concern or abnormal and I realize it's just mental reasons and I keep going. I understand at times your body is trying to tell you stop but unless you can pin down exactly what it is then it's just your mind telling you "this sucks".

Sangetsu

I used to race, and was the designated sprinter in our team. The best strategy I had to get me through tough spots (especially on long climbs) was to get angry. I would recall certain events in my life that made me angry, and which I had never gotten over. In a race, especially in a pack of riders jostling and pushing each other around, it is easy to get angry, to the point of coming to blows. Being pissed off gives you a big boost of adrenaline, and can make a big difference in a sprint. Being mildly pissed off can get you over climbs or through headwinds.

Another thing to motivate me was to think about a good meal after a ride. On long training rides, having a good steak setting next to the stove waiting to be cooked could help keep my mind off how crappy my ride was. Though my rides were seldom crappy, I loved being on my bike in all but the worst weather and windiest days. A day without riding felt worse than a tough ride.

Happy Feet

When I'm feeling tired I like to remind myself: Plenty of time to rest when you're dead.

elcruxio

The beautiful thing about the interaction between me and my wife is that it has always been us versus the world. If stuff is rough for either one of us we don't blame each other about why they dragged us on this godforsaken trip. We together blame the locals for living somewhere where mountains exist, the local government for being idiots in terms of road construction, the idiot caravaner who wanted to wash laundry the same time we wanted to wash laundry etc etc.

I know that comes off as petty and spoiled, but it's our method of coping when stuff's rough and together with being purely a venting mechanism, it's always with at least some tongue in cheek. I recall only one time I was genuinely angry and that was when some dirty swede stole our wine right under our noses. Usually it's not a big deal, you just buy a new one but the local alcohol monopoly had already closed and the nearest shop was 50km's away. So I was pretty miffed.

Jim from Boston

A compatible companion can be a great help. I recently posted to this thread, “Touring alone?,”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston;195169 85 50

I can't think of a more nearly perfect touring companion than a new bride as on our cross-country honeymoon. We had toured together previously for a few years so had a system. On that cross-country ride,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

… I can remember two distinct times on that trip when either one of us hit low a point, and were bouyed up by the other; me in Kansas and she in Ohio…

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clyde1820

The "smell the roses" thing works for me...

Not so much for touring, but I have previously posted on a few occasions to alleviate the boredom of cycle-commuting:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clyde1820

...Isn't magic, but it helps remind me what I'm doing and where I'm going ... out there for the journey, not the destination.

Quote:

Originally Posted by saddlesores

just realize you're on a bicycle tour.
it's your vacation. go have fun, dammit!...

you really don't gotta slog through wind and rain
and dark of night.
there are no appointed rounds

My favorite post about touring is from a few years ago:

Quote:

Originally Posted by bikingshearer

A thought or two, based on personal experience....

Also, what's the hurry? One of the joys of touring is the singleness of purpose and absence of demands. All you have to do is get there: you don't have to get there fast or get their first - and if you are touring with camping gear, odds are you can be incredibly flexible about what "getting there" means on any given day. Embrace that. Don't let your tour become an exercise in trading one rat-race for another.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim from Boston

Doesn't that sound like a Great Escape from the usual daily work/commute "rat-race"? In fact, bad touring days made me long for sitting in an office doing my usual job--very restorative [in retrospection].

Machka 

On tours, we're out there to enjoy ourselves.

We usually plan our tours with some flexibility so that we can take days off whenever we want. We sat out an Atlantic storm on the west coast of France for 5 days on a tour in 2012.

We usually plan our tours with some flexibility so that we can go wherever we want. We have changed our plans on the fly several times.

If things aren't going well somewhere ... we either wait it out or go somewhere else.


On audax/randonnee events, it's a different story. Sure we're there to enjoy ourselves, but part of the challenge is persevering to the end.

alan s 

Headwinds are nothing more than hills. The fact that you have to work on the flats to maintain a decent pace is irrelevant. You might even need to pedal downhill, but that's nothing unusual. The best thing you can do mentally is reduce windage, so at least you know you are riding as efficiently as possible. In a trip in the Florida Keys, I had two day of exposure to 25-30 mph headwinds. It was slow going, but my windage was greatly reduced with bikepacking gear.

Zurichman2

I do this on my ultra rides. Just make it to the next 5 miles. The other thing is to take a quick rest/pit stop get some food in you stretch your legs and start all over again.

Zman

hay

I was on my way home from work a couple of days ago and thought to myself " This is the peak of my biking experience"


Meaning no numbers, not caring about wind or speed, just bike. Period.


I can repeat that quote anytime...

stardognine

I take the reward system to another level. For the "normal" reward, I tell myself there's good food at the other end. When that's not enough, I tell myself that if I don't hurry, some undeserving bass-turd is gonna get MY food. 😁

300ps

I focus on enjoying every moment, even when I'm wet, cold, tired, etc... being grateful that I'm able to do what I'm doing....and reminding myself that those tough days will make for the best stories.

shipwreck

Jeeze I am glad to hear that, good to know someone else has done it. I am very careful about controlling my temper usually, but also have used this technique, but only as a last resort. Usually I remember every coach I ever had in high school. As one of those fat weird kids who have no idea about the rules to any sport other than chess that coaches and jocks in general loath I had a very, very bad time. Now when its a long steep hill at the end of the day and I'm on my third bonk all I have to do is recall a coach turning a blind eye to the athletic kids hawking loogies into my locker and the like. Its good to let things go, but memories are still there, and in this case have actually been useful.
Things have changed since then, all those guys probably could not keep up with me ten minutes climbing a hill all these years later. That thought gets me another five miles into the head wind as well.

Other than that, I generally rely on simple testosterone poisoning to get through the tough days. I actually kind of like riding days in bad weather. No one makes me do it, after all.

Rowan

Difficult moments (and anger) are often associated with three things -- tiredness which is related to lack of adequate food intake and lack of adequate hydration. That is something I have learned on randonnees.

I think the best approach is to stop, look around at the scenery (if any), find some semblence of shelter if the weather is lousy, have something to eat, something to drink, relax, even catch a nap if security of belongings isn't an issue. Put on appropriate gear if the weather isn't good. Play on the phone/computer for a bit, even if it's to look for an alternative, better route, or a closer accommodation/campground.

Hopefully riding conditions will improve, and certainly your outlook on the ride, day and life may improve, too. Above all, relax.

A couple of things about anger. It take energy (heartbeat up, general metabolic rate up), and clouds judgment which, on a bicycle in difficult conditions, is not such a wise thing, and can lead to unjustified confrontation and consequences for your or others. Plus, thinking about those bad times and getting angry can lead to depression.

What is it they say about taking three deep breaths? Then just get on with it... and for me, I try to think positive thoughts (although that doesn't always work).

Doug64

My approach is similar to what Rowan outlined. I want to be where I am, I'm thankful that I can still do what I am doing, and I know I've made it through tough situations before. I just adapt, accept, and do my best to support my partner, who in turn is doing her best to support me. We have had what seemed like less than enjoyable situations leading to some amazing serendipity.

On a tour several years ago we had 35 days of rain, most of it occurring toward the end of the ride. We found out that you can actually get used to it, and it almost feels normal

Snuts

I read the beginning of this thread earlier today. Then (on tour), dealing with this heavy rain the past three days, I experienced yet another shower. Quickly pulling along a municipal building (lift station maybe). Looked to the roadside, a covered bus stop, this far out of the city, hmm. Sat there a few minutes, grabbed a quick nap (10 minutes?). Touring in the moment I'm finding out I am usually provided for. My part move forward, and look around.

But like others, a few mental tricks to get through the yuk sometimes.

-Snuts-

djb

that certainly resonates with me.

Also realizing how lucky we are in the first world and having the opportunity to go on bike trips and have all kinds of "luxuries" in our lives that a lot of people do not have.

gauvins

APA's blurb about resilience. Obviously not meant with headwinds in mind, but interesting reading nonetheless.

At a more mundane level, there is also serious research to document the positive impact of smiling on mood. Which we all know, but may not fully appreciate. There is, for instance, evidence that the mere fact of contracting the muscles that produce a smile does have a positive impact on mood.

---

The concept of resilience is interesting. There are levels of adversity that one can learn to fight (say, running a marathon) and for which both resilience and mood management can be beneficial. There are levels of adversity (such as riding across a desert) where whistling to try to not worry about dehydration may be suicidal. I would tend to say that most people underestimate themselves, such that they'll realize that they can, actually, face challenges they thought they weren't up to. However I know of people who lost their lives by not planning seriously for challenging experiences. Drowning comes to mind as maybe the most frequent instance of that type. Laughing in a stormy sea will not bring you home.