A bicycle touring adventure is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Your body awakens from office slumber, fat cells shrink and the blood flows faster to the brain then it has in years. In short you feel alive.
Unfortunately most tours eventually end for at least some period of time. Hank Raines recently completely his journey across the United States with his two dogs, Agape and Airwick. This was his second major tour in a calendar year with his first tour being a journey down the eastern seaboard of the United States by bicycle.
Apparently suffering from a severe case of PTD (Post Tour Depression) Hank decided to contribute an article about it.
The trip is over. After a lifetime of dreaming, you find yourself back at home after successfully completing a cross country or a long distance journey. It's time to re-enter society alongside the working stiffs of the world. After weeks of eating out of your panniers and long, hot days on the road you're ready for the peace and quiet of home life. it will be nice to be home,... or will it?
The first few days back at home go by in a blurr. You rest, and continue to eat everything in sight. You veg, you eat, then rest some more for afterall you deserve it. You crossed the entire country on your bicycle! You glow in the jealous admiration of your friends and family who really didn't believe you could actually do it. Everyone wants to talk touring with you and you're more than happy to share every last detail of your trip with anyone who asks or cares to listen.
Then it happens. Without warning, no one wants to hear your war stories for the third time. Gone are the crowds of adoring fans and gone too is the metabolism that allowed you to consume 10,000 calories a day and still lose weight. The phone doesn't ring and the inbox is empty. The scale doesn't lie and it says you've regained your lost friend. Put down that doughnut because you're about to go another ride. This ride is called Post Trip Depression and it can happen to the best of us.
You can take a pill for everything from allergies to male dysfunction but there is no pill for you, the cyclist with no place to go. Everything you love about touring now works against you. there will be no new roads that lead to places you've never been. At least not for now. The ride you take around your old neighborhood just serves to remind you that you don't live anywhere near that canyon road with the tall cacti with majestic mountains on either side.
You pedal home, depressed, and make your situation worse by deciding you might need to take a break from riding. Your best friend for the past two months now sits alone in the garage collecting dust as you sit in your home office looking, and then looking again, at the pictures from your trip and days quickly becoming a romanticized memory. You're now in the arms of depression and she embraces you with all her might. She's a bitch without a remedy other than your eventual acknowledgement of her power and the healing power of Father Time.
Work offers little, if any respite but instead serves only to remind you that you no longer have the option of just hitting the road when the spirit strikes. You pour the same energy you used to climb those hellacious mountains into your work but the reward just isn't the same. Paltry paychecks just aren't the same as new muscles and cold, nasty, microwaveable sandwiches. You resent your boss, your responsibilities, and anything that reminds you that you have a life that prevents you from living a vagabond life out on the road. The more you resent, the more she hugs you and refuses to let go. Buy her dinner on your way home because she's moving in and taking up residence on your couch.
Weeks go by and little if anything ever changes. Everything seems a little gray and definitely not as beautiful as the many sunsets you encountered while out on the road. Ask yourself just how many sunsets have you seen since you've been home? The scale now proclaims that which was lost has now been found and then some. Heck with winter and the heck with your meaningless existence. You were a king out on the road with people to see and places to go.
Then, one day out of the blue, you wake up, slip on your pajamas to walk into the den to have breakfast with your new friend who has been sleeping on your couch. The sun is shinning and you hear birds for the first time in months. Your dog jumps up wagging his tail and as you round the corner you notice that the bitch is gone. Father Time has visited you in the night and taken her away. If it isn't the weekend, call in sick, and go to the garage and wipe the dust away from your trusty steed. Depression is gone, but can revisit if you don't lock the door on your way out as you pedal that old familiar neighborhood that looks refreshingly beautiful this morning.
Submitted by Hank Raines
Have you also suffered from Post Tour Depression? Would you also like to have your voice heard as you share your experiences with Bicycle Touring 101? Please drop me an email if you would like to add a quote or story to this article.
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