§ i
Monday morning, and a bicycle by the door
Every Civic Holiday, our group meets for a ride. Nothing heroic. Thirty-five kilometres, a relaxed pace, and an unspoken agreement that no one gets left behind.
It has become one of those small traditions that nobody officially organized. It simply happened one year, and then it happened again, and now it is the thing we all quietly look forward to when the long weekend appears on the calendar.
If you have never ridden with a group like this, I should tell you what it actually sounds like. There is very little talk about watts, or gears, or training plans. There is a lot of talk about gardens, and grandchildren, and whose knee is behaving this summer. Someone always tells the same story. Someone always laughs at it anyway.
The pace is the point. Fast enough that you feel your legs. Slow enough that you can finish a sentence. Somebody drifts back to ride beside whoever is having a harder morning, and the whole group softens without anyone announcing it.
And when we roll back into town, most of us will keep going a little farther — to Croftland Cafe, a wonderful new local café that recently opened. Coffee. Something fresh out of the oven. Bikes leaned against the wall outside where we can keep an eye on them.
I like that we get to be there in their first season, while everything is still new and the owners still look up hopefully every time the door opens. There is something good about a table full of cyclists helping a brand new small business begin its own journey.
That is Monday. And it is Saturday morning as I write this, and I am already looking forward to it.
§ ii
More Than a Date on the Calendar
In about an hour I’ll close this laptop and head to my 10:30 Group Active class at the YMCA.
That is the other thing I have been looking forward to all week.
I know exactly how it will go. I’ll walk through the doors and someone will say my name before I’ve even put my bag down. The instructor will be setting up at the front, already smiling, already encouraging somebody. The same familiar faces will be spread across the room in the same familiar spots, because after a while everyone has a spot.
These are people I did not know a few years ago. Now they are an important part of my life.
And that is the part that still surprises me. A few years ago I would have looked at a weekend very differently. A weekend was for catching up. For errands. For the things I had put off. It was a gap between other things rather than something I was excited about.
Today the weekend looks like this:
- A Group Active class on Saturday morning
- Monday’s Civic Holiday ride
- Thirty-five kilometres with friends
- Coffee afterwards
- A brand new local café that deserves a full table
None of that is extraordinary. Nobody is flying anywhere. Nobody is crossing anything off a bucket list.
They are ordinary moments. They become extraordinary because of the people we share them with.
Which is how I’ve come to understand something I did not understand when I first started riding: an active lifestyle isn’t really about staying fit.
It’s about staying engaged with life.
Fitness is what happens along the way. The friendships, the traditions, the reason to set an alarm on a holiday Monday — that’s the actual return on the investment.
“Routine gives life its stability. Anticipation gives life its energy.”
§ iii
The quiet power of looking forward
I’ve started paying attention to the difference between the two.
Routine is steady and dependable. It gets us out of bed, keeps us moving, keeps the week from wandering off. But routine on its own can start to feel like maintenance — the same days, arranged in the same order, going gently nowhere.
Anticipation is different. Anticipation is a Tuesday that feels lighter because Thursday is a ride. It’s a January afternoon spent looking at a river map for a trip in September. It’s checking the forecast three days early for no practical reason at all.
It doesn’t take much to create:
- A weekly ride that everyone counts on
- A fitness class with your name in it
- A weekend away, two hours from home
- A cruise you’re still only dreaming about
- Something you’ve never tried before
- Coffee with a friend on Thursday
Every one of those experiences begins long before it happens. We live them twice — once in the imagining, and once in the doing. Sometimes three times, if the story is good enough to keep telling.
I think that is what people are really describing when they say someone seems young for their age. It isn’t their knees. It is that they still have something circled on the calendar.
§ iv
What this is really about
PEDAL & PORT has never really been about cycling. It has never really been about travel either, although both are wonderful excuses to leave the house.
It is about living with intention. Choosing to move. Choosing the table where the conversation is. Staying curious about places and people and versions of yourself you haven’t met yet.
It is about continuing to grow, no matter what the birthday card says.
And more than anything, it is about always having something to look forward to.
So here is the only suggestion I’ll make. Put something on the calendar this week. It does not have to be ambitious. A ride, a class, a walk with someone you’ve been meaning to catch up with, a coffee at a café that just opened down the street.
Then notice how the days leading up to it feel.
I’ll be at the Y at 10:30 this morning, and on my bike Monday at the usual place. Coffee afterwards, if you’re anywhere nearby.
Active lifestyle. Shared adventures. It really is that simple.
