THE HUNT

A resident of Portland, Oregon, Kyle von Hoetzendorff (@ new antarctica on Instagram) writes for Yonder Journal and Manual for Speed.

HERE’S WHAT I KNOW: Riding a bicycle brings me joy. But why this hobby over, say, building a 1: 64 scale model train set based on the movie Snowpiercer? It’s not obvious. Cycling is more torture than massage, more salty than sweet. A good ride leaves my legs hurting and my lungs paper-thin. Injuries and expense are par for the course.

Confined to the rational, the pursuit of cycling fails. It isn’t rational to rocket down Whistler in British Columbia with my hands frozen to the handlebar and grit scouring my teeth before launching myself into a veil of mist. It isn’t rational to head to Australia, where instead of enjoying a continent’s worth of beaches, I pedal over melting, sucking asphalt in infernal heat.

But I need that exertion, the speed, the danger. I guess my brain is still connected to the fundamental elements that shaped our hunter- gatherer predecessors. The part of me that’s hardwired to deal with sabretoothed tigers and run down an antelope now finds an outlet in the self-flagellation of pedalling up mountains and avoiding trees while skipping across skeins of singletrack.

I hunt for happiness. Instead of squatting down around a smouldering fire in a dank cave, I gather with like-minded friends in curated coffee shops and worn- out burrito joints. Instead of tanned animal hides, we wear tech fabrics and vintage T-shirts. I hunt for joy, I feed on it, and it’s that memory that sustains me until I can get out there and ride again.