Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
For the uninitiated, the Bicycle Day international holiday might suggest a celebration of bicycles and riding bikes. But that’s only part of the story.
Not to be confused with World Bicycle Day, which is on June 3rd, Bicycle Day is celebrated on April 19th, and its purpose is to honor the first LSD trip, which took place in Switzerland by its creator, Albert Hofmann, in 1943. Wherein the famous chemist was the first to ingest a dose of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). He then rode his bike home from his lab at Sandoz and recorded the experience in colorful detail.
The art flow across the suspension linkage as if it's all on the same plane
“Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images burst in upon me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in coloured fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux,” he later wrote in his memoir, LSD: My Problem Child.
Bicycle Day, along with psychedelic therapies more broadly, has entered the mainstream in recent years. The holiday itself has been covered by Bicycling, Scientific American and even Forbes. These once-demonized substances are now treating a range of mental illnesses, along with addiction, by enabling a veritable rewiring the brain. Michael Pollan’s seminal work on the topic, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, both uncovered and accelerated the adoption of psychedelic therapies in modern society. Today, many states are moving to decriminalize psychedelics for medical use, even if the federal government lags behind.
Worthy of admiration
To commemorate Bicycle Day this year, I commissioned what can only be described as a work of art. It takes the form of a carbon fiber mountain bike frame that’s been stripped and re-painted as a tribute to Albert Hofmann, LSD and Bicycle Day. What frame is it? That doesn’t really matter, actually, because this is all about the art. I worked with TWCarbon to bring this vision to life, and it’s fair to say they completely over delivered on the assignment.
Psychedelic art is its own genre. It is characterized by a pallet of bright pastel colors—a kaleidoscope, if you will—with various psychedelic archetypes including God-like figures, geometric shapes and scenes of Mother Nature as viewed through the prism of an LSD trip. Bicycle Day is a sub-genre of this art form, where Hofmann himself is depicted riding his bike among the Swiss Alps with his character immortalized through so many artists’ interpretations. This is precisely what I wanted to capture on this bike frame.
Better riding through chemistry
My direction to Nick Hand, founder of TWCarbon, was pretty simple. I’ve been doing so-called dream bike builds for years, where every part is curated and assembled according to an ideal scenario for that type of bike e.g. gravel, downcountry, road, hardtail and whatever the Trek Stache is. For this one, I wanted a dream paint job to set it apart from everything else I’ve done. I threw out a couple basic ideas, but Hand pushed me to think bigger. So I suggested the Bicycle Day theme.
“At the time, we had never heard of Bicycle Day,” Hand said. “But a few quick Google searches and we were going down the rabbit hole that was Albert Hofmann and the creation of LSD. We wanted to really push our abilities and see what we could do. It’s rare you get a project with no limits, so when they happen you have to push past what has been comfortable. Without doing that you cannot grow.”
Trippy
“Bike commutes are sacred bookends to the day,” added Leah DeMatta, the TWCarbon artist who painted the frame. “Repeating a route allows you to start noticing new things along the way or to meditate on creative problems through movement. How much more immersive must his ride have been, and how lucky for the act of riding to coincide with the world's first trip.”
“To translate this story,” DeMatta continued, “we created a playful landscape that begins in the ‘lab’ section. The layout in the lab is straightforward and includes LSD and serotonin molecules. On the front triangle, the lab beakers bubble over, and the chemist on his bike is swept up in the vibrant textures of the new world he is experiencing. The LSD side of the bike is a playful collage of tropical colors. We used lines of ice cream swirls and a flattened landscape outline to create the shapes. I wanted it to feel like the chemist is going where the trip takes him; he is taking in a moment where there is no order or time, only color and flow.”
The result, as you can see, is nothing short of inspiring.
Albert Hofmann is my co-pilot
Personally, cycling has always been a form of meditation and expression. It’s supported my mental health for close to 50 years, from teaching myself to ride a bike at age five to competing in BMX during my adolescence, racing mountain bikes throughout my college years, starting a mountain bike touring company as my first entrepreneurial venture, joining BIKE Magazine as an intern out of college (eventually becoming editor) and moving to Park City, Utah, which is arguably the best mountain biking destination in the U.S. It seems oddly coincidental that the first LSD trip took place on a bike and that both psychedelics and cycling support mental health and artistic expression. That is, if you believe in coincidences.
From here, I’ll assemble the bike and follow up with a story about how the Bicycle Day Dream Build actually rides.
