A reader writes:
Have you got any tips for maintaining motivation on a longer tour? I’m just past halfway through a Spain to Ireland tour, and I’ve just been feeling a bit burnt out. Been on the road since April with a bit of time off in July.
Thanks so much for the question! This is a really interesting one. Because you’ve touched on something not often mentioned about long-term bicycle travel, which is that it can sometimes be a draining, rather than a replenishing, experience.
And I’m no psychologist, but my impression from my own cycle tours is that riding in densely-populated Europe tends to involve a lot of stimuli – not just the sensation of motion and the ever-changing visuals, but the social aspect of meeting other people with diverse backgrounds and worldviews, and of course the intellectual challenge of testing your concept of the world against lived reality in a culturally dense part of the planet, as well as quite possibly a language barrier.
Of course, for many people, these are all aspects of cycle touring to be sought out and embraced.
But that doesn’t mean that everyone has the capacity to absorb an unlimited amount of sensory input with no recovery time!
Looking back, it’s telling that my own first big cycle tour across Europe consisted of about 50% riding and about 50% reflection and recuperation.
I was lucky in that I had a few friends dotted across the continent with whom I could rest up. At the time, I chided myself for not being tough enough to just keep riding; yet time off was what I truly felt I needed. And I would typically rest until I felt I had regained the mental energy, rather than the physical energy, to continue.
Adhering to this pattern became the means by which I sustained my cycling adventures for several more years. I quickly learned that if I pushed it too hard for too long, I’d end up feeling burnt out and demotivated. Perhaps that’s why I spent several years as one of the LDCJ’s slowest long-distance cyclists!
In retrospect, that first trip in Europe was also when I learned to identify as an introvert, even if I hadn’t quite put a label on it. Public discourse about the introvert-extravert spectrum has become a lot more commonplace since then, as (thankfully) has the de-stigmatisation of introversion and the emergence of a more helpful perspective in support of the quieter chunk of the population (great book, by the way) who find themselves to some degree exhausted, not energised, by the constant stream of stimulation inherent in today’s lifestyle.
If you feel like any of this applies to you, then the best advice I can pass on about motivation is to think in terms of managing your emotional energy levels.
See if you can identify what it is that drains your battery – it may not be cycling! – and what recharges it. Then adjust your tour as such. If it means spending less or more time riding, or taking it faster or slower, or spending more or less time with other people, or changing the ratio of solo camping to socialising, or taking more breaks from cycling altogether, then so be it. It’s your adventure and you get to choose how to conceptualise it. Just because you have a bike doesn’t mean you always have to be riding it.
Hope this helps!
This is part of my “No Stupid Questions” series, in which readers write in with questions about cycle touring or bikepacking and I attempt to answer them. Check out more recent posts in the series or ask one of your own.
Something to add?