A spark to light the way.

It's been a long time since I just sat here and waxed lyrical on why riding a bike is so important to me. I know it must be obvious to those people around me as today I had a family friend and my Dad asking me if I'd been riding lately. Life has been a bit up and down for me recently.
Riding gives much more than just fitness and a day out. Riding is "intelligent" in its therapy. You go out some days and just smash yourself, because that's what you need. Other days are a roll around with mates for laughs, conversation and time out. Sometimes the coffee post ride is the thing that sets all the buttons back to normal and washes away the dross of a day or week. How can something inanimate "know" what you need? Because you get out what you put in and you get to choose how much you put in.
I haven't been putting enough in for a little while now. The state of my riding is reflected in my life, or perhaps it's my life reflected in my riding. There are struggles to find motivation, to find the spark to ignite the fire again and burn away my lethargy and sloth.
I need the pain again. I have had my perceptions of what can be endured and what can be achieved irrevocably altered by the people around me, and indeed by my own efforts. When I think of the next challenge it gives me a brief  vision of how I should be in life. Passionate, committed, determined. Now it is more persevering, controlled, listless. Time is drawing me closer to another challenge. I don't know what it will be but it needs to be big. I need to know that whatever I take on is not a certainty. I need to know I could fail, if I don't put my passion, commitment and determination on the line. Toe the damn line. It'll be on a bike though. My muse and my tormentor.