“Bikes will save the world. I don’t know how exactly, but I’m sure they will.” That was me about two years ago when I fell in love with the sport. My friend John had taken me on my first “real” 10-mile gravel ride and we had just gotten back to our cars. I had no idea what that feeling was but I knew I wanted to keep it. The next day John called me to ask how I was feeling, and I said “I’m really sore but I love it and always want to feel like this!” But I first want to flashback to three weeks before that bike ride.

John and I on my first real gravel ride!

It was very early 2022 and I was at my lowest. I was fat, had severe clinical depression, major anxiety, and felt like a broken human being. I didn’t have the confidence in myself to do anything at all and had severely “let myself go.” I had the feeling of no where else to go, no more switches to hit or knobs to turn to get my brain to make the switch. I was seeing a therapist and on medications and they did what they were supposed to do, but just like most medications they didn’t fix the problem just dulled it.

That’s when John mentioned he was reading about the benefits of cycling on Mental Health and thought I should get a bike and give it a shot. My apprehension was 8/10… I didn’t NOT like cyclists… but I didn’t understand what the draw was. I come from a Powerlifting background, and the only reason to wear spandex is in a powerlifting suit with 600+ lbs on your back. Not to go for a morning constitutional on your Schwinn. But thanks to him, he was persistent and went with me to go get my first bike since I was a kid. A used Felt F40X Cyclocross Bike.

I instantly fell deeply in love with riding bikes. It quieted my head for the first time in my life and allowed me to actually breathe. I started with that 10-mile ride then I took it on the road the next day and did another 5 miles… then a week later I did my first 30-mile ride. I was so proud I came home beaming to my wife about how I rode a bicycle 30 goddamn miles! That was the first time I had an ounce of pride in myself. I started climbing overpasses, and then the foothills of El Dorado Hills, then the volcanic mountainsides of Hawaii, the huge rolling hills on the outskirts of Yucca Valley… I started to believe in myself and get the confidence that on a bike I can ride anywhere. It gave me fulfillment which I wasn’t getting from some areas of my life at the time.

I started to lose weight quickly and I kept trading those miles for smiles until I realized, I amassed a fun group of friends while riding! These people helped build me back up by sharing pulls in headwinds and inspirational banter back and forth through texts and group rides.

And it was there that I was finally able to work towards my peace. To this day being on a bike has helped me tremendously and many people who have helped me along the way have been on bikes. But that’s part of what makes bikes so special, isn’t it? It’s not only the physical assertion and the Type II fun that we all promise ourselves as we are scaling an 18% climb. It’s the people that we ride with along the way. People who can help build us back up when we are at our lowest and bikes are the coalescing factor that brings us all together.

That’s not saying the Type II fun isn’t a HUGE help to improving my mental health. Just like I gained confidence and self-esteem by riding longer and longer rides, I also want to go faster and faster. I want to hit every PR, I want to hang on to every wheel, and I want to get every local KOM. That drive and goal-setting is what keeps me going and when I see those little strava Gold medals the dopamine hit is massive. When Garmin says my power curve has improved, I feel invincible. And this is coming from someone who couldn’t go to the supermarket a couple years ago…

Two years later I have my dream bike that inspires me to ride every single day and inspires me to keep striving to improve, get better, faster, stronger, and healthier. Every penny and every ounce of sweat I invest in the sport is an investment in me. It’s what makes me finally happy and brings me peace.

As I write this I think I did figure out how Bikes will save the world. Maybe they won’t do it globally as a whole, maybe they will just save the world of the person on the bike. The goal now is just to get everybody on bikes and trading miles for smiles.