BOULDER, Colo. – There's no doubt about it, Coloradans have access to some of the most beautiful outdoors with endless opportunities to stay active and get some fresh air.
When it comes to mental health – you might be surprised – Coloradans often say they're feeling blue as the Centennial state consistently ranks at the bottom of mental health surveys.
May is both Mental Health Awareness Month and National Bike Month. Denver7's On Two Wheels digs into the mental health benefits of cycling as Colorado continues to rank at the bottom of those mental health surveys.
Many Coloradans discover that getting from point A to point B on two wheels – while immersing themselves in natural beauty – not only becomes something to look forward to, but a path to hope and healing.
Over the last year, reporting stories for Denver7’s On Two Wheels has introduced me to many other Denver riders out there who feel the same way that I do. Biking can not only help change your perspective on life, but can uplift your mood and spirit.
This story is the first of a three-part On Two Wheels special report which highlights how Colorado cyclists not only find improved mental health for themselves but share that gift of healing with others around them.
You can check out the other two stories in this series:
- As Coloradans often self-report poor mental health, how biking can lift your mood
- 'Feel that freedom': How Cycling Without Age Littleton helps seniors feel seen
‘Cycling saved my life’
We all take different roads to healing. For many, it's a beautiful, complicated path to make sense of seemingly insurmountable challenges. And if you're lucky, around a turn and after some bumps, you find a purpose.
For Dan Hurd, who credits discovering a love of biking for saving his life, that journey started one pedal at a time.
"If it wasn't for the bike, my life may not would be." Dan told me while we rode our bikes around Boulder.
His winding path through life began with things that would break anybody.
“Unfortunately, I was physically, sexually and mentally abused as a child by multiple perpetrators. I didn't realize the things that they were doing were bad until I was in middle school,” he told me.
In Dan’s teen years, thoughts of self harm surfaced.
“I was in therapy through middle school, through high school. I still never felt like I was meant to be here, but I didn't really understand why until being sober opened the floodgates of all the memories that I was kind of drowning out,” Dan recalled.
In those early years, the stability of a foster family helped, but by Dan’s senior year when he was looking ahead to more change and instability, he found the military — not only as a career, but as an escape.
“I was already kind of suicidal and depressed at the time," he said. "I was like, I don't want to kill myself, and people will remember me as being that suicidal person. So, if at least I joined the military — serve my country and die overseas — at least I won't be considered that type of death,” said Dan.
Serving in the Navy brought Dan structure and connection.
“The people I served with were even more of a family than the family that I thought I had,” he said.
As his military chapter was coming to an end, the pain was still there – until one persistent friend kept nagging Dan, asking him to go for a ride.
“My biggest thing is: I'm grateful for my friend Sean and this bike. I didn't even own a bike. I rode his,” Dan said. “We did 188 miles over a weekend.”
Dan hadn’t rode a bike since he was a kid. With just 40 miles left on that trip, he was becoming exhausted and frustrated.
“At this point, I'm complaining, ‘Bro, we've done 100 and something miles,’” he said, adding that he was ready to give up until his friend said something. “At some point, he got tired of me and turned around and was like, ‘Listen, it's one pedal at a time. Left, right, left, right – shut up!'”
'One pedal at a time'
It was just five simple words, but they stuck with Dan.
“I kind of got this sternness in me, and I was like, ‘I'll show him,’” Dan said. “I was in my own zone and we finished. I felt so accomplished.”
Dan, who describes himself as “an addict of many times” said that phrase “one pedal at a time” was healing in a way he never experienced.
“To be able to survive a day from not doing drugs or alcohol or having thoughts of suicide and acting on those thoughts — that's a lot of time,” Dan explained. “Hearing 'one pedal at a time' brought it to a smaller measurement. I was in the moment. Before he said that phrase to me, I was thinking about the past. I was thinking about the future, what we still had to do to finish, but I wasn't enjoying the moment. I wasn't!”
At the end of that long ride, there was one more revelation waiting for Dan.
“After the ride he goes, ‘Man, when I was your age, I wanted a bicycle across the country,’” he said. “It was like fireworks went off in my head. I knew right away what I was supposed to do.”
Headstrong and rubber to road, Dan in 2019 set off on his unlikely mission: to bike across the United States and reconnect with those old military buddies along the way.
“So, I mapped out where they lived and they lived in 35 states at the time. To get to them, I had to do 42 states,” he said.
Whatever lay ahead, all he knows is he planned to hit the road for three years covering 25,000 miles.
“They inspired this whole trip. They inspired the purpose that I have now,” he said.
It was an epic journey biking thousands of miles and spreading countless smiles – planting seeds of hope.
“Sometimes, it would be people that would see me on the news. I had a guy pull up next to me one day. He goes, ‘Man, you're crazy. I've seen you every day on my way to work. What are you doing?’" Dan recalled. “So, I told him what I was doing. He goes, ‘Man, I'm really glad I stopped and talked to you. I left work early today because I was thinking about killing myself.’ He said, 'I saw you on your bike, but I never really looked at your signs. I'm really glad I stopped, and I think my family will be really grateful too.’ So, he ended up going to the hospital.”
Then one day – and two and a half years into his trip – Dan was rolling through Arizona with 18,000 miles already completed, when an unexpected bump in the road came his way.
“I was rear ended by a car at a high amount of speed, nearly 70 miles an hour,” Dan said. “I was thrown about 100 feet down the road and 50 feet into the desert and the accident destroyed my camper that I built and lived in."
Dan said his helmet saved his life and he credits the impact with the camper behind his bike for helping to soften the blow, but his injuries were serious. He remembers briefly waking up in the helicopter while being airlifted but doesn’t recall much about the crash.
“I woke up after my first surgery, and that's kind of where I started remembering and kind of was aware of what was going on,” he said. ”The doctor told me… he wasn't sure if I was going to be able to walk again initially. Once they went in, did the first surgery, and realized that I was gonna be OK, they said that it might take me, like, two years to learn how to walk and walk properly again.”
He suffered a traumatic brain injury, among many other injuries, and kept reflecting on how he would somehow finish his cross country adventure.
“I was trying to stay as positive as possible. I was doing social media updates every day, just trying to remind people that I was still here and remind myself that even though I am done right now, but that I wasn't done,” Dan said.
Quickly realizing he was developing a fear of cars, Dan knew he’d find his wheels again.
“I needed to go finish my journey ASAP or I needed to give it up – I just couldn’t accept me giving up knowing that I could have finished,” he recalled. “So, I started walking, started standing up and learning to walk again.”
He went to physical therapy to help relearn the small things – like putting on socks – and slowly put himself back together again.
“I'm very fortunate for what I had. I'm still riding a bicycle and I'm still able to have mostly full conversations, and I'm still me, so I'm grateful for that," he said.
Completing his journey would first change him, but it became apparent a foundation was laid for something greater. Dan began using his own experiences, his struggles with depression and his traumatic crash, to help others also hurting.
His nonprofit was born, sharing the powerful message of taking each moment "one pedal at a time."
“It didn't take long for me to realize that there were other people like me that were struggling with their own things," he said.
Striking up conversations with people, Dan kept his heart open for whatever internal battle a stranger might need to share, which has led to suicide interventions.
“I tell people about my childhood traumas, my life traumas, my accidents, things that have affected my life, that have shaped me but also affect my mental health,” said Dan. “A lot of people think that because I ride my bike and I have a nonprofit for suicide prevention and I'm smiling 90% of the time – that I'm cured, that is not the case. It is a daily work. I'm going to have bad days, and that it's OK, but to not stay in those bad days.”
Dan said you don’t have to love riding a bike to benefit from the concept of taking life "one pedal at a time."
“We struggle living in the moment," he said. "We're always thinking about our future. We're always thinking about what we've gone through and what traumas that we've survived. We’re not enjoying the moment. One Pedal at a Time Movement was about showing people that it's important to live in the moment."
“When you're on a bicycle – once you get into a rhythm, it's hard to be in the future or in the past, because you have to pay attention to the now to survive," he continued. "Whether it's avoiding cars or a tree. Whatever it is, you're in the moment, so that's why I love cycling so much.... It literally grounds me to the now. It makes me fade away from the things that I have to worry about in the future or things that I've already gone through which are behind me."
“For me, it’s life-changing and impactful, and it's given me more purpose than I ever expected in my entire life.”
'Connects me to humans all over the world'
Dan’s biking adventures connected him to another bright light in Boulder, who also shares the message of finding light, hope and healing on two wheels.
“I’ve been riding around this lake since I was a kid,” said Ryan Van Duzer, a Boulder cyclist and YouTube creator.
I met up with Ryan at Wonderland Lake to talk about how biking has changed his life and improved his mental health.
“When I jump on my bike, it really does transport me back to when I was a kid and just feeling the joy of getting on a bicycle – just being by myself on my bike and going on adventures,” Ryan recalled. “I was one of those 80s kids that would just leave in the morning and say, ‘Bye, mom, I'm gonna go ride my bike. I’ll be back for dinner.'”
Whether it’s the streets of his hometown or on some faraway adventure in the forest, the over 200,000 subscribers who follow Ryan’s biking adventures get a honest, real life look at the joys and challenges he experiences navigating a life on two wheels.
“My favorite thing about my bike is how it connects me to humans all over the world. Of course, I love riding my bike. I love the physical challenge of it, but my bike has allowed me to really get to know some very unique people all over the planet,” he said.
Ryan was born to ride and serve others. His love of motion started way back as a kid facing a grown up challenge.
“I was diagnosed with extremely high blood pressure," he said. "The nurses didn't even believe that… the machine was reading correctly."
That early health scare led Ryan to take up running and biking, which stayed on as sidekicks through his young life. Later, in his mid-20s, Ryan’s heart led him to Honduras and the Peace Corps.
Once that adventure was coming to an end, Ryan needed time and space to process those meaningful connections. In his garage, he showed me the bike that started his life of adventure and the one he took on the long road back home to Boulder.
“My very first big adventure is the most meaningful one because I was young. I had no idea what I was doing. I rode my bike from Honduras after serving in the Peace Corps and rode all the way back home here to Boulder — about 4,000 miles,” he said. “Everybody thought I was crazy. Maybe I thought I was a little bit crazy too, but I just got to see the goodness in humanity when I was on that ride.”
He listened to others who warned of the dangers of taking on such an epic journey, but the connections he made on two wheels were the reward.
“Before going on the ride, people were like, ‘Oh, you're going through Mexico. Be careful. It's really dangerous.' But all I found out there were humans with big hearts who saw me as a lone cyclist in the middle of nowhere and invited me into meals, let me camp in their backyards, and it was that ride that really inspired me to do what I do today, because of those interactions with humans.”
Whether he realized it or not, the pieces started coming together, revealing how different life can be lived on these wheels – guiding you through natural beauty and connecting you to other humans who can't help but make you smile.
Ryan's channel chronicles the pursuit of what can happen when you do life with heart, which is the message thread through a newly released look at his life, produced by his friend Ryan Fenson-Hood.
“People ask me all the time, ‘There's no way that you're really this happy. When I watch your videos, it just seems like it's a little over the top and fake.’ And I'm like, ‘No, it's real. I really am that happy.' Of course, I'm a human. I have bad days. I can get bummed out, and when that happens I jump on my bike because it just makes me feel better,” Ryan said. “I do think biking makes me a happier person.”
'It's been my therapy. It's been my medicine'
Ryan has a gift of capturing the moment – not just in the big biking adventures – but in the everyday moments that pass you by.
“You can daydream, you can let your mind wander. You see a beautiful bird pass by and I just feel more connected to my communities and to the people around me and to myself. And at the end of the day, it just feels good,” he said.
On his YouTube channel, you’ll find videos in which Ryan opens up about all sorts of life struggles.
"I share the hard parts. I think it's really important," he said. "I have cried on my channel constantly. You know, I have shed many tears on my YouTube channel and I've talked about the reasons why I quit drinking alcohol or going through heartbreak or just burnout in general – of like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’”
It’s a message that connects across borders and barriers. In his office, Ryan shows me one of the rewards of his hard work through the years.
“This is my YouTube Silver Play Button for getting 100,000 subscribers, which was pretty exciting. That took a ton of work to get to this point with my channel,” he said, smiling. “It’s a big deal for me, because getting to 100,000 subscribers took five years of making YouTube videos every single week with a lot of slow growth. I didn't have one viral hit that skyrocketed my channel. So, this is a lot of blood, sweat and tears right here.”
As anyone who creates content knows, your success is often at the hands of algorithms which can bring all sorts of uncertainty. He’s seen a lot of ups and downs through his YouTube journey.
“Some months can be really good, some months can be really bad. I'm 45 years old, I'm questioning how long I can do this as a career,” he said. "But when I take a step back and I go outside, whether on my bike or my feet, you know, I can just take a deep breath and just, ‘It's gonna be OK.'”
'Just go out there and just pedal'
Like so many others who sometimes struggle to make sense of it all, two wheels have a way of connecting you to life’s small moments that you otherwise might miss.
“It’s kind of like a rolling meditation for me, even if I'm pedaling really slow or really fast. I can almost feel my blood pressure calming down. It’s just chill,” Ryan said.
It's a rolling lesson first learned by an 80s kid, dreaming about big things around Boulder’s Wonderland Lake.
“I hope to be doing this when I’m 100 years old – riding around Wonderland Lake – saying hi to all my neighbors,” he smiled, as we passed one of those neighbors who returned a “Hello, neighbor!”
Ryan and Dan – like so many Coloradans – have discovered the positive impact of pedaling your way through life’s big questions and pushing yourself through one more hard climb.
“I'm really, really grateful that I have cycling in my life and just running in general, getting outside. It's been my therapy. It's been my medicine. It's been a way to process the tough times,” Ryan said. “I've really figured out a lot of life's biggest questions when I ride my bike. Whether it's across Boulder or across the United States. And so for me, it's really valuable time. It's like a gift, you know, that I'm giving myself to get on my bike and just go out there and just pedal.”
That's a message Dan discovered, taking life one pedal at a time.
“Physical activity, whether it’s cycling or something else, is important for our lives,” he said.
It just takes courage to believe in yourself and watch what happens when you roll up to another human with words you didn’t know you needed to hear.
“Go find your zen activity,” Dan said.
“Get out there and get off your couch and just go outside and have fun,” added Ryan.
Any discussion about the mental health impact of cycling needs to include the inherent dangers of riding a bike in Denver as bicycle and vulnerable road user deaths continue to climb in Colorado.
Denver7's first On Two Wheels special report dove into the unique hazards when biking in the Mile High City.
The special report below includes real-life video examples shared by Denver cyclists showing what it's like navigating the roads with drivers.Biking dangers in Denver: Close call stories ‘On Two Wheels’Denver7's On Two Wheels is also tracking road user data across the state in the infographics below. You can view the graphs in fullscreen mode at this link.
