If I were to offer advice to the young, one thing I'd tell is that they should look forward to getting older because the statute of limitations runs out.
Thus, I can admit to having done some riding in my youth after intaking substances that may or may not be banned by the UCI and WADA, if not Federal and State authorities.
Thankfully, there are many more substances with influences under which I never rode. For that matter, I never took any of those drugs. I have to wonder, though, what it was like to ride under the influence of what Albert Hofmann took before his ride home on 19 April 1943.
Herr Hofmann had synthesized several derivatives of ergot, a fungus found on rye, in search of a new stimulant drug to induce childbirth. He accidentally ingested a small amount of his 25th derivative while synthesizing it, and recorded the effects thusly:
“… affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”
Three days later, on the 19th, he intentionally took 0.25 milligrams--what he believed to be the "threshold dose"--of his new drug. However, he soon realized that he had greatly underestimated its potency. Within an hour, he was experiencing vast shifts in his mental perceptions. Because of wartime vehicular restrictions, he asked his lab assistant to escort him home by bicycle.
After he awoke on his couch and his physician assured him that he indeed had not been poisoned, he recorded his "trip":
“… little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux…”
By now, you probably realize that what Hofmann made and ingested was not one of today's energy bars or Red Bull. It was Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25, or what we now call LSD or "Acid".
Trippers and stoners today refer to 19 April as Bicycle Day, in honor of the world's first "acid trip". (I would argue that the first trip was actually experienced, and recorded, by the author(s) of the Book of Revelations.) Hofmann had never dreamed of such a thing, or the late 1960s Haight-Ashbury scene, for he had envisioned his drug as an aid to psychotherapy: Its "intense and introspective nature", as he described it, would limit its popular appeal.
Note: In writing this I am not endorsing the use of LSD-25 or any other hallucinogen or banned substance, whether or not I used them in my long-ago youth!
Thus, I can admit to having done some riding in my youth after intaking substances that may or may not be banned by the UCI and WADA, if not Federal and State authorities.
Thankfully, there are many more substances with influences under which I never rode. For that matter, I never took any of those drugs. I have to wonder, though, what it was like to ride under the influence of what Albert Hofmann took before his ride home on 19 April 1943.
Herr Hofmann had synthesized several derivatives of ergot, a fungus found on rye, in search of a new stimulant drug to induce childbirth. He accidentally ingested a small amount of his 25th derivative while synthesizing it, and recorded the effects thusly:
“… affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”
Three days later, on the 19th, he intentionally took 0.25 milligrams--what he believed to be the "threshold dose"--of his new drug. However, he soon realized that he had greatly underestimated its potency. Within an hour, he was experiencing vast shifts in his mental perceptions. Because of wartime vehicular restrictions, he asked his lab assistant to escort him home by bicycle.
After he awoke on his couch and his physician assured him that he indeed had not been poisoned, he recorded his "trip":
“… little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux…”
By now, you probably realize that what Hofmann made and ingested was not one of today's energy bars or Red Bull. It was Lysergic Acid Diethylamide-25, or what we now call LSD or "Acid".
Trippers and stoners today refer to 19 April as Bicycle Day, in honor of the world's first "acid trip". (I would argue that the first trip was actually experienced, and recorded, by the author(s) of the Book of Revelations.) Hofmann had never dreamed of such a thing, or the late 1960s Haight-Ashbury scene, for he had envisioned his drug as an aid to psychotherapy: Its "intense and introspective nature", as he described it, would limit its popular appeal.
Note: In writing this I am not endorsing the use of LSD-25 or any other hallucinogen or banned substance, whether or not I used them in my long-ago youth!
