Is Working in Cycling a Dream Job?

One of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life was making my hobby, my job. I am sure with that sentence you are ready to play the world’s smallest violin for me, but, and there is always a but, it can really suck all the joy out of your hobby. You no longer think in the same way when you go for a bike ride, you start to think about how this ride could be used for work, what techniques am I using, and before you know it your escape from life and work, has turned into a full-blooded exploration of work.

Then you make your way into the office and you watch your hobby get turned into endless Excel spreadsheets, another piece of the life and soul of cycling being sucked out for every completed cell. I believe this to be a special kind of hell, one that I am sure even Sisyphus could find empathy for.

Sometimes you need to take a small break from your hobby, to re-energise yourself. How can you manage that if almost every day you have to go and work in that field, to turn up and be totally stoked on the thing you are burnt out from? You have to go and get children stoked on cycling, but at that moment the idea of cycling makes you feel ill.

You want to run away, hide from work, be ill, and not turn up. Being ill is a godsend as you can shut yourself away and not have to deal with the reality of being burnt out.

When you do turn up, people will ask you, “How is the dream job?”, but you are so disassociated you play the game of loving cycling with a cold detachment. Your inner monologue screaming at you to give up on this deception and admit you hate it.

You are living a dual existence.

On one side, cycling has become your own inner hell and is slowly killing you. The other is where cycling will save the world and you are happy to do your part to save society through two-wheeled adventures. You are teaching the fun of cycling while wishing it would all end. The more fun the people at your sessions are having, the more disassociated you become.

You start to wonder if you ever truly loved cycling? Did you accidentally hyper-focus one day on cycling, and now here you a cyclist with no way out. Am I a cyclist?

Why am I doing this?

Then you go to a session, and a kid learns something new. Their excitement bubbles over, and they high-five you, and the cyclist in you jumps back into action.

The cycle continues.