The click-clack of carbon fiber cleats on the asphalt of the park parking lot sounds like a swarm of metallic beetles looking for a fight. I’m standing by my dented sedan, watching Gary-or a man who looks suspiciously like a Gary-unloading a bike that costs more than my first 3 cars combined. He is 43, an accountant by trade, but today he is draped in aerodynamic Lycra that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, shimmering with the logos of Italian gear manufacturers and high-end lubricants. He looks like he’s about to lead a breakaway in the Pyrenees. In reality, he’s going to ride 13 miles at an average speed of 12 miles per hour before stopping for a $7 latte.

I’ve spent the last 43 minutes trying to find my own left sneaker in the trunk, and witnessing this level of preparation for a casual Saturday loop makes me want to crawl back into bed. I tried to meditate this morning, honestly. I sat on the floor, crossed my legs, and told myself I would find Zen before the sun hit the curtains. Instead, I checked my watch after 3 minutes. Then again at 13 minutes. My brain is a frantic puppy that refuses to sit, and seeing the professionalization of a simple bike ride isn’t helping my cortisol levels.

We have entered an era where you cannot simply ‘do’ a thing anymore. You must ‘optimize’ it. You cannot just run; you must have gait-analysis sensors and 23-ounce hydration vests. You cannot just swim; you need goggles that display your heart rate on the lens. The democratization of sports was supposed to make us all healthier, but instead, it’s created this bizarre arms race of amateur elitism. We are buying the identity of an athlete because we are too terrified to just be people moving through space.

Utility vs. Theatre

Oliver E. knows a thing or two about what people actually need to move. As a refugee resettlement advisor, his day job involves helping people who have crossed 3 borders with nothing but a sturdy pair of shoes and a singular, burning will to survive. When I talk to him about my frustration with the local cycling scene, he just laughs, a dry sound that reminds me of gravel shifting under a tire. Oliver recently helped a family of 13 settle into a small apartment three towns over. When the father asked for a bike to get to his job at the warehouse, he didn’t ask about the modulus of the carbon weave or whether the hubs were ceramic. He wanted to know if the tires would hold air for 53 consecutive days.

There is a profound disconnect between the utility of movement and the theater of performance. We’ve been sold the lie that the barrier to entry is financial. If you don’t have the $3,003 setup, you don’t belong on the trail. You see it in the side-eye from the ‘serious’ riders when a kid on a BMX bike or a mom on a rusted cruiser passes them. It’s a subtle, pervasive shaming that tells the beginner: ‘You aren’t trying hard enough until you’ve spent too much.’

I’m guilty of it too. I once spent 63 dollars on a pair of socks because the packaging promised they would ‘reduce lactic acid buildup.’ I’m not even sure I produce enough lactic acid to justify a specialized sock. I was just afraid that if I didn’t have the socks, I wasn’t a ‘real’ runner. We use gear as a shield against the vulnerability of being a novice. If I have the best equipment, any failure is my body’s fault, not my preparation. But if I show up in a t-shirt and old sneakers and fail, it’s because I’m a loser who didn’t take it seriously. Or so the internal monologue goes.

Reclaiming Play

This obsession with the ‘pro’ experience has stripped the play out of our lives. When we were children, we didn’t check our cadence. We rode until our legs burned or until the streetlights came on, whichever happened first. There was no data to upload to an app. There were no 83-dollar canisters of electrolyte powder that tastes like chalky neon. There was just the wind and the peculiar freedom of being able to go faster than your feet could carry you.

Now, we treat our hobbies like a second job. We analyze the metrics, we obsess over the weight of our water bottles, and we forget that the point was to escape the spreadsheets, not create new ones. I see Gary out there on the path, his face twisted in a grimace of intense focus as he monitors his power output on a screen the size of a deck of cards. He isn’t looking at the trees. He isn’t feeling the sun. He is a slave to the 3 percent improvement he’s trying to squeeze out of his Sunday morning.

I think that’s why places that reject this philosophy are so vital. We need spaces that remind us that a bike is just two wheels and a dream of not being stuck in traffic. When you look at the mission of Sportlandia, you start to realize that the industry is finally seeing the exhaustion in our eyes. We don’t want to be the next champion of a race that doesn’t exist. We just want to move without feeling like we’re failing a gear inspection.

The Soul of Sport

Oliver E. told me a story about that refugee father. After three weeks of working the warehouse shift, the man came back to the office to thank Oliver. He hadn’t just used the bike for work. On Sunday, he had put his youngest daughter on the handlebars and ridden her in circles around the parking lot for 33 minutes. He said it was the first time he felt like the war was truly behind him. He wasn’t tracking his heart rate. He was tracking the sound of his daughter’s laughter.

That is the soul of sport that we are currently suffocating under a mountain of expensive polyester. We’ve replaced the emotional output with a digital one. We think that if we can measure it, it matters. But you can’t measure the feeling of the downhill descent when you take your feet off the pedals and let them fly out to the sides. You can’t quantify the exact moment a stressful week at the office dissolves into the rhythmic thumping of your heart against your ribs.

I’m not saying we should all ride junk. There is a middle ground between a $10,003 racing machine and a pile of scrap metal. But the middle ground is where the life is. It’s where the families are. It’s where the people who actually like their neighbors are. The ‘pros’ in the park are often the loneliest people there, trapped in a private bubble of performance, unable to say hello because it might ruin their average split.

Finding the Middle Ground

I finally found my sneaker. It was wedged under a box of old files I was supposed to organize 23 days ago. I pulled it on, tied the laces-no BOA fit system, just string-and hopped on my bike. It’s a 13-year-old mountain bike with a saddle that squeaks like a frantic mouse every time I hit a bump. I started pedaling.

As I passed Gary, he was adjusting his GoPro. I waved. He didn’t wave back; he was too busy checking the tension on his 123-dollar carbon fiber bottle cage. I didn’t care. I headed toward the hill, the one that always makes my lungs feel like they’re being scrubbed with sandpaper.

I thought about my failed meditation session. I realized that the reason I kept checking the time was because I was trying to ‘perform’ meditation. I wanted to be the guy who could sit still for 53 minutes. I wanted the gold medal in stillness. Once I let go of the need to be good at it, I actually started to breathe. The bike is the same way. It isn’t a pedestal; it’s a tool.

We need to give ourselves permission to be mediocre. There is a sacred space in mediocrity because it is the only place where you are doing the thing purely for the love of it. No one is paying you. No one is scouting you. You aren’t going to win anything except perhaps a slight tan and a better mood. When we professionalize our leisure, we sell our joy to the highest bidder. We turn our rest into a commodity.

Beyond the Circles

I rode for 63 minutes. I didn’t track the distance. I didn’t check my pace. I just watched a hawk circling above the trees, probably wondering why all these colorful humans were sweating so hard to go nowhere. I felt the sweat sting my eyes, and for the first time in 3 days, my brain stopped vibrating.

Maybe the goal isn’t to ride in circles around the park faster than everyone else. Maybe the goal is to ride in circles until the circles don’t feel like a cage anymore. We are all just trying to get back to that version of ourselves that didn’t know what a ‘marginal gain’ was. We’re looking for the kid who just wanted to see how fast the world blurred when you closed your eyes and let go of the brakes.

When was the last time you did something physical without checking a screen to see if it counted? If you did it right?

Give Yourself Permission to Be Mediocre.

Find the joy in movement, not the performance metrics.