Hill perception
Community is a word that is used a lot these days and it’s a word that has a lot of depth and meaning to me. It’s something that I’ve had in my life for a long time and something that I’m truly grateful for daily. It can provide support, make changes, and add purpose to our lives. I recently listened to a podcast with a guy named Shawn Achor. He was a student at Harvard where he studied Christian and Buddhist ethics and later worked at the school as a happiness researcher. When I listened to him talk I couldn’t help but appreciate and connect with his words. The connection I have made through bikes has fueled my happiness and made things seem probable that I would have likely never even considered possible.
Some researchers in Virginia did a study on hill perception and found that your brain will perceive a hill 20-30% steeper when you stand at the bottom alone compared to standing there with someone next to you. This made me think about the things in my life that I have overcome because of the community I found around bikes. At a younger age, it wasn’t even something you would think about, and the word community wasn’t even used probably because the physical act of it was more prevolent. However, as we get older and look back on our experiences in life it becomes so clear the tools that a strong community provides us with.
He goes on to talk about the correlation between happiness and your potential, and that happiness is the experience of positive emotions - pleasure combined with deeper feelings of meaning and purpose. He says that the brain at positive operates significantly higher than at negative, neutral, or stressed. For generations, we have been led to believe that happiness orbits success, that if we work hard enough we will be successful and once we gain that success we will be happy. But thanks to breakthroughs in the field of positive psychology it is becoming clearer to many that the opposite is true. That success orbits our happiness. I just love that simple statement.
I know in my life bikes have brought me so much simple joy and fulfillment. Getting on a bike can shift your mood in an instant and in that joy, ideas, imagination, and creativity seem to thrive. I’ve personally had so much mental clarity and breakthroughs while being on a bike and that continues to this day. It’s something that is so tried and true for me that if I need inspiration or to process a challenge I’m going through the bike is one of the first things I turn to.
We live in a time where you can do so much on your own, with a click or a swipe you can do or have anything on your phone which involves zero social interaction. We believe that technology connects us so much but in my opinion, we have never been more disconnected from ourselves and those around us. We all want success in our lives whether that’s social, financial, or with our family lives and these studies are proving that this is way harder on your own. No matter how many you face life’s challenges are always in front of us and those hills will loom higher and steeper if you don’t have a community around you for support
I was fortunate with BMX to find a community that was so accepting and welcoming to all. It was so small at the time yet so strong and authentic. It didn’t matter what your background was you were instantly welcomed and felt a part of something so special. That was the early 90’s and a lot has changed in the world since then, but when I found this new world of ALT cycling and became deeply obsessed with it I was so happy to find myself in such a familiar place. It feels much like my youth, meeting new and interesting people who share a common passion and are simply looking for a community of like-minded individuals to share it with.
One last snippet from this truly inspiring interview. He tells a study about fireflies that illustrates just how much more potential we have when we operate in a community. Fireflies usually light up at random intervals while trying to attract a mate and this produces a success rate of 3% per bug per night which is considered pretty good. But there are two colonies of fireflies in completely different parts of the world, one in the smokey mountains of Tennessee and the other in southeast Indonesia. These fireflies have figured out a way to use neurotransmitters to time their pulses within a millisecond of each other so that they all light up at the same time. The scientists that discovered this said this was such an incredible sight to witness but at first thought well that’s not very smart as we live in a survival-of-the-fittest environment so surely they are limiting their potential for reproduction. Turns out that their success rate went up from 3% to 82%.
You might have read all that and thought what on earth do happiness, your life’s potential, and fireflies have to do with bikes or this brand Rune that I’ve taken the time to interact with? Well, the simple answer to that would be everything. Bikes have always been about community for us and this brand is an extension of that, a way for us to share those experiences. When you find something in life that you are so passionate about and then you find other people who share that same passion, you have found something extraordinary. There is wisdom to be found there, ideas to be dreamed up, and a source of inspiration that can make you realize your full potential and purpose. Not everyone is fortunate enough to find that in this lifetime and it is there to be cherished and shared.
photos by Simon Weller