"Eat when you're hungry. Drink when you're thirsty. Sleep when you're tired." So says a Buddhist proverb, echoed more recently by that prophet of cycling, Velocio, in his Seven Commandments of Cycling. These are:
1. Keep your stops short and few.
2. Eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty.
3. Never get too tired to eat or sleep.
4. Add a layer before you're cold, take one off before you're hot.
5. Lay off wine, meat and tobacco on tour.
6. Ride within yourself, especially in the first hour.
7. Never show off.
Perhaps Buddhism and cycling are the same...
The ride can be meditation, the full fluidity and presentness of the eternal moment, breathing in rhythm with legs turning. Is the wind changing? I'm going slightly downhill now. What gear should I be in to maintain the rhythm? Look out for that glass! Gotta wipe the tires...
A stream of motion coming at me for as long as I can maintain making circles.
