I'm riding fast down a steep hill in the wind and rain on a dark morning. The special qualities of rain – its wetness and stabbiness – are accentuated when you come at it at speed, on an angle, and first thing in the morning. Cyclists riding in the rain have a facial expression they make to try to shield themselves. They draw their features back into their head, trying to retract everything, like a snail. I feel my face doing it too. People tell me I should wear one of those snood things. When you ride a bike, people tell you to do lots of things. "You should get an e-bike." "You should get a car." "You should get off the road." Maybe these other things will come in time but I won't wear a snood. I have a theory that if drivers can see your whole face, especially your mouth when it is screaming, then maybe they will be friendlier.
I reach the bottom of the hill and begin my climb up a different hill. Cars, e-bikes, rain and recycling bins hurry past impatiently. It is always at this point that my brain alights on the question, as if for the first time: Why am I doing this? All of the known reasons – because it's faster than walking, because fitness, because there's no bus, because tea tastes better afterwards – are scattered to the winds and I'm suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of futility. I will never reach the top of the hill. I will have to stay here at the bottom and start a new life. As a van squalls past a few inches away, my outlook slumps further and for the millionth time while cycling uphill in the wind and rain my whole future is brought into question. Where will I be in five years? Ten years? What if I am dead by then? What if I die today?
Maybe none of this is a very good advertisement for cycling. But it's going to get better.
There is a little-studied question in psychology, which is: even when we know rationally that our moods are ever-changeable, that they can be darkened by simple factors such as the weather or being a bit tired, why don't we remember this in the moment when the perspective would be helpful? Why, instead, does the brain go into a spiral – one that levels out as soon as the mood-dampening factor is addressed? It is as if, snood-like, the brain is trying to protect us, draw us back into ourselves, so that we'll never put ourselves into an uncomfortable situation again. But in its attempts to help, it turns a suburban hill into Mordor.
I reach the top of the hill. I go inside and get warm and dry. And just like that, the mood passes and I'm back to thinking nonsense like, Better get a haircut and I really love toast.
