Sad, the end of summer, and not just because our serotonin transporter density changes as the days shorten. Prime cycling season’s over.

Summer mornings, I’m out on my bike early, between six and seven so that my outings are invisible, completed before the rest of the family rises. Bicycling is not a religion for me. Swimming is, and writing. Not an otherwise superstitious man, I believe that if I miss a chance to swim — I mean in the open ocean — or to write, then in future, the sun will not shine on me. Cycling is in the more modest category, exercise. The worry is that if I don’t do it today, I’ll find an excuse not to do it tomorrow, a concern that’s odd, since I would say that I love to be out on the road.

Readers of this blog may recall a post or two where I wrote about my use of sports metaphors in psychotherapy. This season’s lesson is: change is difficult. Or: change is illusory. We kid ourselves.

I’d had a bad cycling year. Since the injunction to ride was not absolute, I’d let all sorts of considerations keep me home so that I entered the crucial month, August, with too few miles behind me. Still, I was ambitious. I’d been getting pointers on gearing and cadence. I thought I’d ratchet up my endurance, and my speed.

I tell myself not to worry about speed. Putting in the time, pushing the body, enjoying the early morning sights, making it home safe, those are enough. Camaraderie, too, when the gang is out there. Still, I’m slower than the guys I sometimes ride with, slower than anyone who rides as much as I do should be. It would be nice to keep up with the big boys.

I’ve come under the tutelage of a friend I’ll call Coach. He’s the one who, a few years back, badgered me into getting the old clunker out of the tool shed. When Coach had got the bug into me, he sat with me in the library and led a search on eBay for a used entry-level racing road bike. The one we chose was never top-of-the-line, and a past owner had detuned it, substituting tires that have more tread and take lower pressure than the ones real speedsters use. But my ride was light and fast enough that, once assembled, it constituted something of a revelation. Perhaps cycling is religion after all.

All August, I pushed myself. First, the goal was to get into last year’s form, then, to move beyond. My usual course is a hilly fifteen miles. If the others are out there, I serve to warm them up — they go on to do a total of forty or fifty. If I’m not taking advice from Coach, I sprint the whole way, and even so I tend to plateau at an average of sixteen to sixteen -and-a-half miles an hour. Recreational bikers go at twelve to fourteen, but the group that’s out there every day commits to eighteen; most days, they’re up above twenty.

As I say, I try to set pace to the side. I focus on the uphills, hoping to hit them fast and stick with the cadence. Most often, I won’t check the average speed on my Cateye odometer until I hit mile fourteen. Then, if I’m near a personal best, I’ll flog myself to the finish.

That happened this Labor Day weekend. Saturday, rain had kept me indoors. Sunday, I had been set for a longer ride, twenty-five miles — but then family obligations caused me to change my route entirely. The difficulty of the hills seemed comparable. I thought I’d push myself, to make speed substitute for distance. A mile before the end, I clicked the Cateye to “average speed.” Up popped a number I’d never seen at any substantial distance: 17.2. The route ahead was all flats and “faux plats” There was no trouble getting the screen to read 17.4 by the ride’s end.

Good, I thought. Back in shape. Perhaps I had put in more miles than I imagined. Or since the odometer belied that fantasy, perhaps I’d pedaled harder, stretched myself more. I’d changed my style, tolerated faster curves and downhills, downshifted less on the uphills, dug harder with my heels, achieved a rounder stroke.

The next day, I was back on the old route. The guys were out, and I took the first five miles with them. No luck. I was barely in the peloton. When I turned off on my own, I lowered my head into the wind, followed the curves tight, refused to listen to protests from my thighs. There I was at the end. Sixteen, sixteen-and-a-half. No improvement at all.

Which makes sense. I’m a year older. I hadn’t put the work in. I hadn’t changed my form. Not enough.

That’s the lesson, as I say, in sport and in therapy. We lie to ourselves about the effort we’ve made. We lie to ourselves about what’s needed. Think how much change you need to make. No, it’s more: more than you think.

Note: This topic provides an excuse for me to plug “Bike4theBrain,” a Kansas City cycling event meant to raise awareness of mental illness. For those nearby: The B4B rides take place September 28. Check the Website for routes.