« Flow is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity » – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
I have experienced flow many times, in my work and in a few sports in which I have a good enough level of expertise.
To emerge, flow requires enough difficulty to bring us out of our comfort zone and challenge our skills without being overwhelming.
The first time I experienced flow was probably skiing. It is the sport that I have practiced the most. Flow states in skiing are short-lived, born somewhere at the middle mountain after a few turns and ending close to the chairlift. Flow in skiing appears just long enough to get a taste of what paradise feels like. Flow states in skiing are one of the reasons we travel to high mountains.
Mountain biking is another sport where I sometimes experience flow states.
In this sport, the variables that allow the emergence flow are speed, technical difficulty and physical effort. Again, flow states can be difficult to maintain because these variables have to be just right and we don’t control them. The trail difficulty is preset. The speed and physical effort are linked. When our heart rate rises above 160, when our field of vision restricts, flow vanishes as pain grows.
Nowadays, I realize that I enjoy mountain biking much more because I get more control over the variables that create flow with my e-bike. I control the level of effort so that I am never in a pain zone. I control the speed with the amount of motor assistance and physical effort. I can adjust dynamically those factors to fuel flow and it becomes more sustainable over time. When difficulty decreases, speed can be increased to keep it challenging. A big hill is not met with pain but with increased assistance and stable effort.
I understand now why my ebike allows me to experience more of the pure pleasure that emerges from the act of riding a bike on a mountain trail.
Martin Pham Dinh 