Delightful Video Feast: Cyclists Explain What Cycle Touring Means To Them

For the uninitiated, using terms like freedom, or describing cycling (and cycle touring) as an art form might induce some eye rolling. Oh please, you might say. Freedom? Really?

We have been so fortunate to have the opportunity to work with three talented young filmmakers who have captured some very thoughtful commentary on cycle touring, and what it is all about beyond pedal strokes and sips from a water bottle.

What you will see in the videos below and what makes cycle touring so addictive, so transformative for some, is the fact that it can really make you feel free. In our first video below Tom Perlmutter and Peter Cox talk about how cycle touring allows them to live in the moment and how it allows them the selfish satisfaction of not worrying about the past or the future.

Give these videos a moment and decide for yourself whether it’s all hyperbole or if there are grains of truth in what they are saying.

1. I’ve Lost All Concept of Time

“If you ask me what day of the week it was today I wouldn’t be able to tell you…. we live  very much in the moment of now.”

2. Entering a Meditative State

“I think it’s a meditative state that I sort of get into and the miles just sort of fly by… I’ve been trying to do 20 minutes of meditation everyday at home. I find it very hard to fit that into my schedule and here I can do it all day long on the bike and I can still want more of it.”

3. I’m Happy Everyday

“I’m not doing dangerous things, but I always like to do adventures. To take in the feeling of how the country is. If you go by car… you don’t have this close feeling of how it is.”

4. Where the Cycling Takes Me

“Going in this really remote place where I would’ve never been otherwise. So far away from what we have at home. It’s another world.”

5. What I think about while cycling

“The riding a bike is an art in itself. Cause your on a bike you got plenty of time to yourself and it’s free time to think about what you like.”

6. That’s Freedom

“You can’t see it in a car, you can’t see it in a place… the pace of the cycling is the perfect way to see the transition from north to south. You get on your bike and everything goes away.”

After the Cycle Tour Ends

It is sustainable? Can you live like this after a cycle tour ends? After the adventure recedes and life and responsibilities return? Probably not. But did the experience have value? Did you grow as a person? Will it make you a better person? That’s up to each individual I guess. (cue the eye rolling now)