Tomas Quinones was on the sixth of seven days of a bikepacking tour through the Oregon desert when he saw something lying by the side of the trail. He thought it was a dead cow. He had already passed three that day. Then it moved. It was a man, 73 years old, who had been in the desert for four days and was barely conscious. His Jeep had gotten stuck in a stream bed days earlier; he had set off on foot and then collapsed. Quinones pitched his tent over the stranger to provide shade. He gave him water. He pressed the SOS button on his GPS tracker and stayed for over an hour until the ambulance arrived. That was the end of his ride for the day. Not a single kilometer further, no best time, no glory. Still, Quinones wasn’t the loser that day. What drives a person to drop everything for a stranger has more to do with their own suffering than it seems. Anyone who understands why also understands why we ride together in the first place.

Pain as the Glue

Anyone who has endured a tough ride with their teammates—the final climb in pouring rain, everyone at their limit—knows that shared suffering brings people together. Pain cannot be hidden. Those who struggle up the mountain, gasping, cursing, gritting their teeth, reveal themselves as they are—without pretense, without a facade. And anyone who sees another person like that feels for them. It is precisely this empathy that creates closeness, not the effort itself. But therein also lies its limitation: Those who suffer alone aren’t connected to anyone. If someone rides the same climb at their absolute limit, but without anyone else sharing in their suffering, no closeness is formed—only exhaustion. Only when another person witnesses the agony do two riders pushing themselves to the limit become a pair who share something.

This sheds new light on, of all things, the toughest ride many people ride today: the solo session against the clock. Against one’s own personal best, against a colleague’s time from last week, against the King of the Mountain on the Strava app. Full effort, no one around. In the end, there’s the best time. Who’s standing next to it?

Why We Want to Suffer Alone

That doesn’t make the solitary ride any worse. Those who pedal up the mountain alone aren’t looking for an audience. They’re seeking proof within themselves. Effort acts as an amplifier here: the more a goal has cost, the more it counts afterward. A summit you’ve fought your way up to feels different from one you reach by riding a cable car. The burning in your legs is part of the reward.
Today, the solo rider is rarely truly alone. He has an audience—it’s just not sitting next to him. Strava, the leaderboard in your pocket, drives them even harder: Anyone who wants to be the King of the Mountain pushes themselves to the limit. Afterward come the kudos, the digital thumbs-up. The app was founded by two former rowers who, after graduating, missed the team spirit of their crew and deliberately built that sense of community into the app. The applause feels good, and it works.

But it arrives late. The thumbs-up reaches the rider hours later, at home on the couch, from someone who wasn’t there. The colleague panting alongside him on the climb is there while it’s happening. He’s suffering the same way, at the same moment, on the same mountain. The thumbs-up rewards the effort once it’s over. The colleague shares it while it’s still hurting. Both create a bond, but not to the same depth.

The closeness that doesn’t last

There is a closeness that arises above all during a shared state of emergency. At the limit of exertion, after eight hours in the rain, everything else fades into the background: the job, the status, who’s who. The only thing that matters is that everyone is going through the same ordeal. The anthropologist Victor Turner described this state and gave it a name: communitas. It is the group’s euphoria at the most grueling point of the tour, when people feel closer than ever before.

But this euphoria rarely lasts on its own. It is tied to that state of emergency. Back in everyday life, the old roles return, and the special closeness of that day fades. It becomes a memory, not a connection. If you want to make more of it, you have to follow up—with the next tour, the next shared project. But what remains when you no longer need the others for any of that?

What We’re Missing Out On

Riding a mountain bike alone is nothing new. Riders have always done that, and many love exactly that: a clear head, their own pace, no coordination. What’s new is how well it works today. In the past, those who set out alone would sometimes get lost, struggle against headwinds, or find themselves completely on their own deep in the woods if their bike broke down. The GPS takes away the fear of getting lost, the cell phone the fear of an emergency, and the motor the fear of a long climb. And if you want, you can get the recognition in the app in the evening that used to come only from the group. That’s a gain in freedom. Most people still enjoy riding together, often with Strava recording. But today, no one needs anyone else to get started. Those who ride in pairs do so for the joy of companionship.

Both have their place. Those who ride alone seek proof within themselves. Those who ride together share something you can’t have alone—even if the group sometimes puts pressure on you instead of providing support. Neither approach is wrong. It’s just worth knowing what you’re giving up when you leave others behind more and more often, simply because it’s easier. But there’s a third kind of suffering, and it matters the most. In the moment when one person falters and another falls back to stay with them, it’s not just the weaker one who wins. The person who helps receives something in return that money can’t buy: the feeling of being needed. Studies show that helping makes people happier than receiving help; it reduces stress and gives the day meaning. The stronger person, standing at the summit and letting the slower ones catch up, considers himself generous. Yet he is the one who gains the most that day.

This brings us full circle back to that man in the desert. Tomas Quinones had nothing to gain that day: no time, no leaderboard, no kudos. Just a stranger on the ground, whom he initially mistook for a dead cow. The moment he looked down and stopped, that overlooked thing became a human being. And two strangers became two people who shared something. That’s all it takes. One who is suffering, and one who sees it.