Bicycle Day
Despite the name, Bicycle Day is not about pedal bikes or Queen; it’s a day to recognize the scientific and psychiatric impact of the drug known as LSD.
Position your brand as a thought leader in psychedelic science and mental health innovation by exploring the historical and therapeutic significance of LSD research.
- The untold story of Dr. Hofmann's accidental discovery and its impact on modern psychiatry
- How psychedelic research is reshaping mental health treatment today
- From counterculture to clinical trials: the legitimization of LSD therapy
While the day isn’t a direct celebration of bicycles, most people that learn about the day are relieved to discover that the two-world vehicles do play an integral role in the story. Even for an LSD user, the absence of a bike would just be weird.
The historical event was, quite literally, a bike ‘trip’ taken by Dr. Albert Hofmann. In April 1943, the Swiss scientist accidentally discovered the effects of LSD on the human body.
Three days later, he subsequently conducted an experiment in which he intentionally took a 250mcg dose of the substance before riding home with his lab assistant. During the ride home, Hofmann’s trip started with bouts of anxiety and paranoid warped thoughts that his next-door neighbor was a malevolent witch.
However, the trip would change his perceptions in a more positive manner. He later explained: “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.”
Having been checked over by a house doctor, it was confirmed that (aside from dilated pupils) no physical alterations could be detected, thus confirming the impacts had been entirely psychological.
While Hofmann had correctly predicted this after his previous encounter three days earlier, his calculations on the threshold were wildly inaccurate. That 250mg hit was over 10x the 20mg threshold dose, which probably explains why the impacts were so quick and noticeable.
It clearly didn’t do him much harm in the long-term, though, as he lived to the age of 102!
While Hofmann’s famous bike trip happened in 1943, Bicycle Day didn’t launch for another four decades! That’s one very long comedown…
The first Bicycle Day was organized in 1985 by Thomas B. Roberts, then a Professor at Northern Illinois University, starting out as nothing more than a party at his DeKalb, Illinois home.
Despite remaining a small scale event over the following years, it grew in popularity at a rapid rate in the early years of online interactions thanks to students spreading the word on forums and other internet platforms.
It is now an annual event that has been amplified to greater levels than ever before, with thousands celebrating it in their own ways. Even more, people are expected to join the fun year after year.