How was your spin?

More often than not, when I walk in the door after a cycle, my wife asks the same simple question:

“How was your spin?”

It’s not a trick question. It’s an opener. A small moment of interest in how I’ve spent the last few hours pedalling around the roads and lanes. And just as often, my reply is equally simple.

“Good.”

Conversation moves on.

When I do expand, though, it’s remarkable how predictable the direction can be. Nine times out of ten it involves a near miss on the bypass, a car squeezing past where there was no room, or a bus close enough to make me inhale sharply and tighten my line into the ditch. After a three or four hour spin, the story that survives is often a four-second interaction — and a negative one at that.

We’re probably wired this way. The bad sticks. The good quietly slips by. But that doesn’t mean it deserves centre stage.

Because if you actually go looking for it, 95% of every single spin is spectacular.

It’s the soft orange glow creeping into the sky as the sun lifts itself awake. The swan gliding alongside you on the blueway, unbothered, unhurried. The view that appears almost accidentally when you crest a climb and pause just long enough to notice it. These are things you don’t get from behind a windscreen.

Motorists are rushing, distracted, sealed off from the world they’re passing through. On a bike, you’re immersed in it. Every smell, every sound, every subtle shift in light and weather. It’s all there, every time you throw a leg over the saddle.

Yes, there will always be careless drivers. They’re part of the landscape whether we like it or not. But letting a handful of seconds ruin hours of freedom, effort, and enjoyment feels like a poor trade.

It’s still early January, and already many resolutions have slipped quietly off the ladder. Often it’s not a lack of intention, but a lack of space. Our lives are full. To add something meaningful, something else usually has to go.

This year, I’m choosing to remove something.

I’m removing the habit of letting brief, careless interactions overshadow the vast majority of what makes cycling such a privilege. I’m choosing to remember the light, the silence, the views, the simple joy of turning pedals through the world.

So the next time I’m asked, “How was your spin?”

I might still say, “Good.”

But I’ll know exactly why.

Barry