When is it too much?

There's an interesting discussion taking place over at bikejournal about when cycling becomes too much of an obsession. The general consensus seems to be that this happens when you start to sacrifice long-term ambitions and goals for it (although one reply quite rightly points out that people never get ridiculed for being obsessed with golf, but cycling somehow makes them "weird" -- which is something I wear as a badge of honour). My question is this: what happens if cycling is your long term goal?

You see, I don't ride specifically to clock huge distances on the bike (as much fun as that is). When I'm not riding for transport, I ride to explore. I ride for what I can discover in the places that my bike can take me. My main objective in life is to see as many places from my bicycle saddle as possible. I live where I do purely because of the sheer number and variety of places to ride. When I consider them to be exhausted, I'll move on.

A few years ago, I was unemployed, uneducated and generally unmotivated. I was living with my mother, collecting unemployment benefits and going to the beach every afternoon. At that stage I simply had no long-term dreams. I made a few half-hearted attempts to find work, but essentially I needed something to motivate me if my life was going to go anywhere. Eventually I helped a local shopkeeper out with some renovations, and got enough cash together to buy a beater bike from a low-end store.

I started riding it (a lot) simply to give myself something else to do, and discovered some beautiful places like Springbrook or Beechmont. Eventually I desired to go further, and that was going to cost money. I wanted to ride in Tasmania, but I couldn't afford the airfares. I got off my backside, got a job, went to university and got a qualification (became the first ever in my family to graduate). Five years later it happened (you should have seen me on the plane on the approach to Hobart airport). Along the way I've been to other places that I hadn't considered (and indeed I didn't even know a good many of them existed). Yet virtually everything I have has come about simply because of the desire to ride, the desire to explore, the desire to discover the world.

I have another trip starting in 29 days, then it's back to putting money away and planning another adventure. Speaking of which, I still have some small things to tidy up. Things to do this weekend:

1. Find where I've put all that cold weather cycling gear that I'm not using, and get it all together. I'm going to be riding in places that get summer snowfalls, I need to be prepared.

2. Decide on the best way to pack my bike for the plane. I'm not sure how much I'll need to disassemble the hybrid to get it into the airline bag, it will be the first time I've flown with it.

3. Dig out all of those important documents like passports and so on. I won't need a visa to travel to NZ, but I still want the other things sorted out.

4. Give that new camelbak it's first trial run. A long ride on Sunday should do it.

I think that will do to begin with, given the busy weekend I'm facing regardless. Yes, they could all probably be put off for another couple of weeks, but I have no intention of waiting that long and panicking late on. That isn't the way I do things.