Gets under your skin doesn't it.

[rollindoughnut]

Last Sunday I had a smashing day out. Left the house at 2.30am, slept out in the open for a couple of hours just because I could, then rode 136miles including carrying my loaded bike up a zig zag path on the White Cliffs of Dover.
I met a group of pretty feral locals down by the shoreline and approached them to ask if the way up the cliff was even possible. They were warm and helpful and left me with a real sense of belonging. The ride was fairly long, fairly hard and utterly blissful. I felt so at peace throughout. I rode through a packed Canterbury and felt nothing in common with these people. I hastened on to solitude and the prospect of petrol station sandwiches.

I spotted tonight that there may be some cyclocross racing this autumn after all, something I've obsessed about for years , yet all I can think of is my next adventure out in the wilds. I've been seduced by this feeling of constant movement and I want more.

Oh gawd! I have a very addictive personality.

[In Reverse]

I've been seduced by this feeling of constant movement and I want more.

I suspect that's something we're all familiar with. Beautifully put.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Careful or you'll soon start to see any ride that doesn't involve strapping bags on as somewhat pointless

[RIP]

Good post

Some say that bikepacking is a nice way of "getting away from the real world", but a while ago I commented that it was in fact the complete opposite - bikepacking is the real world and what we come back to is the unreal one. Actually, I've just messed up my own aphorism there haven't I! It's more complex than that: we come back to bikepacking after we've had to visit the unreal world for an extended time

It's always taken me a little while to "come down" from a bivvy trip, but the first time I experienced the WRT I felt really weird on the way home and it took me a good three or four days to adjust to the unreality of the daily grind inside the asylum (there's another of my aphorisms - bikepacking is outside the asylum looking in at the rest of the world crammed inside like the inmates of some human-populated TARDIS......"lost in time, and lost in space.... and meaning" as Rocky Horror would have it).

So, the problem that I foresee is that one day I'll be in bikepacking-world and not be able to adjust and visit the unreal world ever again.

Problem? Hmm.....

[Bearlegged]

It's like the chap with the asylum in the Hitchhiker's Guide books.

[RIP]

Careful or you'll soon start to see any ride that doesn't involve strapping bags on as somewhat pointless

Too late!! We've got him/her in our evil clutches! You can never escape now! AH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

[Ray Young]

Careful or you'll soon start to see any ride that doesn't involve strapping bags on as somewhat pointless

Catch 22. Rides that do not involve strapping bags to your bike seem pointless so you are less inclined to imbibe which leads to poor performance when you do strap bags to your bike. That's me all over.

[slarge]

There is no doubt that for many a night or 2 out in the hills is good for the soul. Something very liberating about only having a few things to think about - you, food, water, shelter and your bike. It can take a day or 2 to get back to "normal".

I rode through the night on the Dales Divide - a wonderful experience being up on the moors with a full moon and clear sky just riding. Barn owls and lapwings everywhere, and even hedgehogs (I saw more hedgehogs in 1 night in the hills than in 5 years down here).

[BigdummySteve]

Last Sunday I had a smashing day out. Left the house at 2.30am, slept out in the open for a couple of hours just because I could, then rode 136miles including carrying my loaded bike up a zig zag path on the White Cliffs of Dover.

I grew up in Deal, the cliffs were my stomping grounds, along the coast to Kingsdown then over to st Margaret’s bay then Dover to Folkestone, we would kip in the dunes at sandwich, happy days.