The rush of adrenaline when you break a personal record.

The overwhelming feeling of accomplishment when you reach your destination.

Many people delight in their favorite forms of physical activity, and they take it beyond just a hobby. For new Upper School English teacher Charles Shuttleworth, that sport is biking.

Learning how to ride a bike as a child in the suburbs, Shuttleworth used this capability in his preteen years in order to explore the world around him.

“From 10 to 13 [years old], a bicycle was my independence. I was riding myself to Little League baseball games and to the store,” Shuttleworth said.

At 13, Shuttleworth began attending The Hotchkiss School, a private boarding school in Lakeville, Connecticut. In 9th grade, on one of the school’s days off, he and two friends went on his first big ride — around 60 miles long, leaving him sore for a week. Following this trip, though, Shuttleworth put a hold on his pastime of biking.

“After that one episode, I really stopped riding. There were other things to do […] Bicycling no longer became a focus.” Shuttleworth said.

This gap lasted until he was in New York City for graduate school, and bought a bicycle to get around. He was able to explore the other boroughs of New York and ride to the ocean.

Shuttleworth’s discovery of his affinity for biking, though, occurred when Shuttleworth and two other friends went on a 10-day trip from New York to Montreal to Boston. Another realization he made after the outing was of his love of mountains.

“From then on, I was always looking to ride long trips to some place that I hadn’t been and in mountains. I started to look at maps and try to figure out where I could go; it became a focus and it really hasn’t ever gone away.”

Shuttleworth has ridden across the entire United States a total of 6 times: 1990, 1997, 2002, 2006, 2009, and 2011. Despite this remarkable achievement, though, he claims a 7-week loop of the West as his favorite trip – just as long, but in his opinion more beautiful. The excursion took place in 2004, covering locations in Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, and even Alberta, Canada.

As his friends grew older and raised families, Shuttleworth says they were most of the time unable to accompany him on his journeys. To record his experiences riding by himself, he began maintaining a journal and a blog, and started taking a camera to photograph the scenic beauty on his rides.

“I just learned to be happy by myself. I’d rather go alone than not go,” Shuttleworth said.

While not striving for any long term objective other than recreational pleasure, he does set and reach his own individual goals.

“I think I’ve had a couple of other rides that were ultimately more difficult, but [160 miles] was the furthest in a day.” Shuttleworth said about a personal record in 2010, where he rode 160 miles fully loaded with gear.

Biking long distances such as Shuttleworth does results in an accumulation of many accomplishments — although the sport for him is a blissful release, there is one weakness that he thinks long-distance bikers must conquer.

“There’s a euphoria that comes with the effort, and the only thing you have to protect yourself against is […] ‘bonking’, when you run out of energy and your outlook goes in the tank.”

For him, overcoming this psychological adversary is an achievement in itself. As a younger rider, Shuttleworth says he was vulnerable to this drop in determination; his belief is that the only way to fight it is to develop strength against the negative emotions, and have faith that it will only be only temporary.

“I’m aware of what it is, I’ve experienced this bad feeling before, and I know it goes away,” Shuttleworth said.

Although Shuttleworth does not ride to beat records, he thinks that having a goal in terms of a destination to reach is always helpful in terms of retaining willpower.

“I haven’t been to Monument Valley, I haven’t been to Yosemite […] they’re places that I really want to experience by bicycle,” Shuttleworth said. “I don’t even want to go to those places off a bicycle because to me it would ruin it. What’s really exciting is the physical exertion of getting there and riding through someplace.”

Since moving to California, Shuttleworth has found some nearby locations to ride through as well, including Highway 9 to Santa Cruz and Route 1 to Santa Barbara, which he has done twice.

His blog is located at http://why-i-ride.blogspot.com, where his experiences and photos while riding can be found.