"When I look back at what has been going through my mind, I find the tapes are missing"

For the Doc, riding alone is a blissfully thought-free zone

- Multiple national champion on the bike and award-winning author Michael Hutchinson writes for CW every week

Non-cycling friends often say things to me along the lines of, "You must really be able to get some thinking done when you're cycling. I imagine you think up all your columns when you're out on the bike. They must almost write themselves!"

Normally I say something straightforwardly dishonest, which is, "Yes." That's because the truth is difficult to explain, and I feel that it does not reflect well on me.

Ironically, thinking about things isn't something I think about too often. And that's because when I look back at what has been going through my mind during a long ride, I find the tapes are missing. There's nothing there. If I really concentrate I can come up with a few decisions about the route, some dark thoughts about the weather, and nothing else. Even then I'm not sure that I didn't just invent those to make me feel better.

It's different if I'm riding with someone. Then I can often recall conversations in much more detail than I might if we had them over coffee somewhere. I think the passing landscape gives me some way to associate conversations with places. I get the same thing if I listen to a podcast. But on my own, it's just a void.

It's not clear whether I simply don't think, or whether I do and I just can't remember it. I'm sure I'm not alone in sometimes forgetting things until they come back hours later. In 2023 I got knocked off by a driver at a junction midway through a tempo effort, landed

HOW TO... STAY COOL

This is 'stay cool' literally, rather than metaphorically. This column has no expertise in the latter.