It rained from the minute I woke up on Saturday morning until the time I went to bed on Sunday night. That’s OK, I thought, I’ll just go out and ride on Monday night instead. Then it rained all day Monday. On Tuesday, work got in the way and instead of finishing early and heading out for a ride, I was stuck at my desk. On Wednesday evening I had chores to do. Thursday was out too - I had already plans for the evening, so I couldn’t ride. No worries, I’ll wait until Friday and ride on my day off. Overnight a cold weather front moved in and I woke up to find my local world covered thickly in ice. My normal Friday ride gang were also either busy or ill, so I didn’t have anyone to motivate me to get out. It looked lethal outside anyway and I didn’t want to go out and risk crashing. So, I skipped riding again.
Saturday and Sunday saw ever colder temperatures. The ice built up. The trails would probably be nicely hardpacked now. But council budget cuts meant none of the shared-use cycle paths between where I lived and my local trails had been treated with salt and so were now covered in sheet ice and were terrifying to even walk on. I spent a very grumpy second weekend in a row not riding.
It was surprising that even after ‘only’ ten days of not riding, I noticed some physical and mental changes occurring. I wasn’t sleeping well and was waking up at 2 or 3am and them struggling to get back to sleep. I was feeling grumpy, irritable and emotional. My normal energy levels were dropping noticeably and I needed more hits of caffeine and sugar just to get through the day.
To top off my list of woes, the plummeting outside temperatures were combined with an explosion in the price of gas and electricity. Like many people across Europe, our smart meter was showing our daily spend had more than doubled, but in order to keep the cost down, we had reduced our thermostat setting, so my office was distinctly chilly.
Cold, tired, grumpy. Not three words that are happy bedfellows. But they were made worse by my lack of endorphins, dopamine and serotonin, caused essentially by just sitting on my arse too much. It’s easy to underestimate how vital the generation of these chemicals is in maintaining positive mental health. But essentially, less exercise = lower levels of ‘feel good’ chemicals = slippery slope to mental health issues.
The odd thing was that despite realising exactly what was happening, my motivation to get out and do some exercise was equally decreasing. It’s too cold. I’m busy. I need to sort things out for Christmas. It’s incredible how easy it is to find excuses not to go out and ride once you start looking.
What I needed was a big kick up the arse some inspiration which would help break the cycle. Weirdly, just as the arrival of crappy weather was the perfect storm that created my winter blues in the beginning, it was the weather that helped me get out of it. Or more accurately it was the weather forecast.
All week it had been super cold with daily maximums below zero, but the long-term forecast showed that the end was near and that warmer, damper, duller weather was heading our way. I’d been wanting to capture some images showing how great winter gravel riding can be and I could suddenly see my window of opportunity closing. If I didn’t pull my finger out, I was going to end up missing the snow and maybe my chance for capturing the images that I wanted.
“I know it’s short notice, but I wondered if you had any spare time in your diary tomorrow for a quick winter gravel photo shoot?” was the message I sent to my friend Clive. He’s self-employed, but perhaps more importantly, always up for heading out on the bikes and I figured if anyone could shoehorn a couple of hours of riding into his busy schedule then it would be him. Luckily, he was able to juggle his work commitments to create us a two-hour window. We would be starting quite late in the afternoon and would run out of daylight super quickly, but I came up with a plan for a couple of locations which we could reach easily and which I figured would have the perfect combination of snow, scenery and sunshine.
The next day saw us pile out of my van. I had a huge smile on my face at how perfect the conditions were and how beautiful the light was. Clive was really excited to ride in 'perfect' winter conditions. It was way below zero and with added (or should that be subtracted?) windchill, I knew that we would get cold really quickly if I faffed about too much. I had my camera pack already sorted, my main camera in my hand, my thickest down jacket on and most importantly my trusty fleece-lined waterproof rigger boots on my feet.
Heavy boots with armoured soles and steel toecaps are perhaps an odd choice for a photographer, but they’re super warm and grippy which makes them ideal for a snowy shoot. They are in no way designed for sporting activities, but winter photoshoots in sub-zero temperatures, with a tiny window of useable light mean just one thing – the photographer is going to be running full pelt from one location to the next, trying to capture the shots before the rider(s) get hyperthermia and the sun disappears. And luckily, when I’m wearing my trusty riggers, my normal allergy to running seems to disappear!
I set off at top speed for the first location, a few hundred meters down the trail. As I found the perfect spot, I tried desperately to control my breathing and heart rate, checked my camera settings and gave Clive the signal to start riding. As he came closer, I put the viewfinder to my eye, framed my shot, focussed and hit the shutter button.
It might sound like total rubbish, but something about the combination of hard physical exertion, the need to focus 100% on my task, the perfect weather and Clive’s ever cheery attitude, triggered something in my head and as the time ticked by, I could feel the winter blues start to drain away.
By the end of our two-hour window my grin was as big as Clive’s. The combination of physical exertion, mental stimulation, good company, stunning weather and perhaps even the pressure of getting the job done all combined to re-boot my mojo. Even though I hadn’t even sat on a bike and had spent the afternoon impersonating a very strangely dressed rucksack-carrying fell runner, it was enough to help lift my mood. The fact that the photos came out well was of course just the icing on the cake.
So, what did I learn from this? That losing your mojo can happen remarkably fast and be surprisingly difficult to recover from. That even though you might recognise you are suffering, you might need some help to dig yourself out from a low patch in mental health. That it might be something unexpected that helps you start to feel better – in my case spending an afternoon running flat out through frozen snow while carrying a 10kg camera bag was what did the trick. That Seasonal Affective Disorder effects millions of people every year, but there are some simple fixes available. And finally, that friends and family (and sunshine…) are probably the most important factor in helping to fight off the winter blues.
I’m going to finish with the slightly adapted lyrics from Baz Lurhman’s Everybody’s Free (to wear sunscreen) track
“If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen gravel riding with friends in the sunshine would be it
The long-term benefits of sunscreen gravel riding with friends in the sunshine have been proved by scientists
Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
Than my own meandering experience”