Do I Need Therapy?

I won't quote all parties involved in the conversation at the dinner table last night, but the basic core of the discussion was that perhaps my obsession with bikes is a bit . . . unhealthy. No threats of divorce, no pleas to "get help", no tears, but still, the question of my aberrant bikeophilia was raised.

I labored mightily to find equivalent obsessive behavior in my wife, but it was a losing battle. She gently pointed out that two out of three of my sentences have the word "bike" in them, all day long, dawn to dusk. I spend an inordinate amount of time tinkering with my bikes. Now that Jon and I are planning a trip, I get to spend even more time studying maps, figuring out optimal routes. And let's not even mention all the online orders for bike stuff I place. (I just got a new stem from Rivendell; it really helps the slush mobile. More later.)

My argument was that lots of people have hobbies. My wife kept getting back to the 2-out-of-3 statistic. It's not a mere hobby if you can't stop talking about it. EVER. I believe the clinical term is "addiction". Maybe that's reserved for substance abuse. No, you can be a sex addict, too. I suppose over-eating can be a kind of addiction.

OK. It's an addiction. My name is Bruce and I'm a bikeaholic.

But is that so bad? I wake up in the morning, stumble out of bed, and think, well, what do I have to look forward to today? The answer ALWAYS is bikes. I can have a miserable day ahead of me at work, too much to do, too many unpleasant people to deal with, but I know I can always escape to my "special bike place." I can be fretting about my own mortality, conjuring up psychosomatic illnesses (I've had some doozies), worrying about my kids, but I know that I can calm myself by visiting rivbike.com, or installing a new basket on my bike, or spending a few minutes poring over a map.

Escapism? Sure. But the beauty of it is that I love riding bikes. So I may be obsessive, but I'm also healthy. And it's probably unhealthy--mentally--to want to ride 30 miles a day in summer, but it's got to be healthy, physically. (My wife thinks it's unhealthy to the point of insane to want to ride from Lansing to Empire--240 miles or so--in 24 hours. I say it's my Paris-Brest-Paris equivalent, give or take a few hundred miles. I have good lights. I figure traffic will be light at 3:00 am, so I can ride on more direct roads. I'll do a few more centuries first, in preparation.)

But all you need to do is roam the internet a bit, read some bike discussion boards, visit the web sites of randonneuring groups, to realize that there are lots of us nuts out there, some even nuttier--much much nuttier--than I am. Although I obsess about bikes, I don't get into online arguments about which derailer is better, nor do I irrationally take the reflectors off my pedals to save weight (at least, not since I was 16), nor do I have the desire to own every bike ever made. (Well, I may have the desire, but I'm able to resist the urge.)

And talk about unhealthy obsessions: How about all those summers I spent looking at the sky, looking at the trees, wondering when the wind would be perfect for windsurfing? Do I go now? Or wait? How long? What happens if the wind is perfect now and I don't go? How will I live with myself for making the wrong decision? Now, I get up, I schedule the day's ride, and go about my business. (I windsurf, too, but I don't obsess quite so much about it.)

But still, why the bike thing? What is it about a beautiful bike that turns me on so? Why does the thought of spending the day sweating away in the hot sun to go exactly nowhere (in the end) excite me?

The fact that bikes can make me so happy just means that I'm an unhappy person, I guess.