Bicycle Day is quite possibly the most significant annual celebration for psychedelic enthusiasts (affectionately known as psychonauts), and certainly for advocates of LSD. On April 19th, Bicycle Day commemorates the day on which Albert Hofmann, the chemist who discovered LSD, intentionally consumed the substance for his first time. He experienced the peak effects during a bicycle ride home.
Bicycle Day has since become an annual celebration, an opportunity to acknowledge the importance of psychedelic medicine, and an excuse for psychonauts to take ridiculous doses of LSD (although Hofmann would certainly not approve of this).
However, Bicycle Day certainly didn’t rise to its current level of popularity overnight. Here is the history of Bicycle Day, including an account of what took place before and after this important historic date.
What Led Up to Bicycle Day
Albert Hofmann was a Swiss Chemist who is renowned for synthesizing a number of chemicals, as well as isolating and extracting numerous compounds from plants. He is most well-known for his discovery of LSD.
Hofmann originally had no intention to produce the chemical for therapeutic purposes. He was actually hoping to develop a new drug that could help to treat heart and lung conditions.
His experiments at this time were focused on the ergot fungus. He was hoping to isolate or develop a new analeptic drug to help manage respiratory health problems. His original experiments with LSD involved using the chemical on sedated animals in an effort to restore them from general anesthesia.
The substance produced minimal effects. Aside from a few small twitches, the animals didn’t seem to respond to LSD at all. Hofmann put the chemical away and forgot about it for five years, returning to it in 1943.
Hofmann’s first subjective experience with LSD occurred three days before what we now call Bicycle Day. On April 16th, 1943, he decided to synthesize a new batch of LSD after deciding that the compound surely had some as-yet-untouched medical value.
By the time he had finished synthesizing and storing his LSD, he began to experience a number of psychological and physical changes. He described this as sinking into a “not unpleasant intoxicated like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.”
Even though he didn’t actually consume any LSD, he rightly suspected that he may have absorbed some of the compound through his skin. A few days later he returned to begin the first-ever intentional experiment with LSD.
The Events of Bicycle Day
According to Hofmann’s interview with the New York Times in 2008, he decided to experiment with LSD because the chemical “spoke” to him. Characteristic of mad scientists of any era, Hofmann seemed to have a supernatural connection to the chemicals of his lab. He further reported that LSD told him that “You must find me. Don’t give me to the pharmacologist, he won’t find anything.”
So, prompted by the telepathic ghost of a chemical stored in a stoppered glass beaker in a laboratory halfway across the city, Hofmann concluded the most rational decision was to ingest a larger dose of said substance.
When later asked to elaborate on this seemingly transcendental statement, the respected scientist responded by dispelling the commonly-held notion that science and spirit are incompatible. “When you study natural science and the miracles of creation,” he said, “you are not a natural scientist [if you don’t turn into a mystic].”
Since there was no way to figure out how much LSD to take, Hofmann decided on a dosage of 250 micrograms. This is about twice the standard dose of LSD and, for a first-time user, can be immensely disquieting.
As the effects began to take hold, Hofmann realized that he could no longer proceed with his work at the lab. As he began to experience effects similar to those of his previous dose, albeit many orders of magnitude stronger, he realized that he should get to a safer place where there was less risk of causing explosions and acid rain.
At the time in question, World War II was going strong. In addition to being one of the worst time periods to drop acid in, there was a city-wide restriction barring the use of motor vehicles. Hofmann asked his assistant to help him return home.
The two quickly hopped onto their bicycles as Hofmann’s experience became more profound and pronounced. This monumental bicycle ride was a pivotal point for the world of recreational and therapeutic substances as it introduced the world to the powerful nature of LSD.
The Bicycle Day Trip
Hofmann’s first experience with LSD was just about as typical of a ‘bad trip’ as you could ever expect.
As they mounted their bicycles, Hofmann’s perceptions already began to wane. “I struggled to talk normally, and my vision started to fluctuate. It was like a laughing mirror,” he wrote in his memoir from 1979.” I felt like I was not moving, while my colleague said I was going very fast.“
He reported that once he returned to his house, “my surroundings had now transformed themselves in more terrifying ways. Everything in the room spun around, and the familiar objects and pieces of furniture assumed grotesque, threatening forms. They were in continuous motion, animated as if driven by an inner restlessness.”
Nowadays, psychonauts can fall back on Hofmann’s experience and the reports of half a century’s worth of acid heads and remember that these hallucinations pose no real threat. Hofmann, however, was the first person to take such a high dose of LSD. He wasn’t sure if he would make it out of the experience alive.
His intuition told him that milk was the antidote to the lethal poison he’d ingested. He requested that his assistant borrow some from the next-door neighbor. When she returned to bring him milk, he recalled that “She was no longer Mrs. R., but rather a malevolent, insidious witch with a colored mask.”
Following his encounter with the milk-bearing witch, Hofmann believed himself to be possessed by a demon. In an effort to exorcise the demon, he “jumped up and down and screamed” in an attempt to take back possession of his body and mind. “The demon… scornfully triumphed over my will,” he recounted upon remembering the way that he repeatedly sunk down into his couch after his failed attempts to vanquish the demon.
After regressing from demonic possession to insanity and, eventually, the fear that he might die, Hofmann requested the assistance of his doctor. The doctor reported that all of his vitals were fine; the only abnormal symptoms were Hofmann’s dilated pupils and inability to speak properly.
After this, he slowly began to come to terms with his condition. “Little by little I started to enjoy the extravagant colors and shapes that took place before me,” he wrote 36 years later. Then came the kaleidoscopes and colored fountains.
After Bicycle Day
Hofmann’s own words on his post-trip experience are conflicting.
In 1979 Hofmann wrote: “The next morning I felt incredibly well and it seemed like there was new life in me. The world seemed to be recreated.” The original report, however, says that he felt “the old man again,” but somewhat tired, so he remained in bed all day on the doctor’s advice.
Over the next few years, Hofmann continued to experiment with LSD, although in much smaller doses. On September 29th of the same year, he took what would be considered a microdose by today’s standards: 20 micrograms.
During this experience he allowed himself to turn inwards and focus on the psychological and emotional experience. He deemed the overall trip to produce a “nice, warm feeling.”
He continued to dose in the microgram range several times, exploring the therapeutic potential of the substance. He later stated that he “never dreamed that people would take this drug recreationally.”
Bicycle Day Celebrations & the Future of LSD
It’s unknown exactly when people began to celebrate Bicycle Day, but what’s certain is that by the 1960s, LSD was in full circulation. Chemists other than Hofmann, who would have never approved of the mass distribution of what he later deemed his “problem child,” for this exact reason, began to produce and distribute LSD.
This act singlehandedly changed American history and gave life to the counterculture movement. Throughout the 60s, people hardly needed an excuse like Bicycle Day to find a reason to drop LSD.
Hofmann partially blamed the counterculture guru Timothy Leary for encouraging the widespread use of LSD. Hofmann, who vehemently disliked Leary, discouraged him from spreading information about the substance.
“I had this discussion with him,” Hofmann told a reporter from Scientific American during the Worlds of Consciousness forum in 1999; a meeting of distinguished scientists, psychologists, and pioneers in the various fields of human consciousness. “I said, ‘Oh, you should not tell everybody, even the children, “Take LSD! Take LSD!”'” LSD “can hurt you, it can disturb you. It can make you crazy.”
Another reason that the substance gained popularity was because of a controversial Harvard experiment often referred to as the Good Friday Experiment. The study was done to evaluate the effects of psilocybin, the ingredient in Magic Mushrooms, on spirituality and mysticism. The study, as well as many other studies done on psychedelics at Harvard, were supervised in part by Timothy Leary himself.
The experiment resulted in many scientific, rational, and atheistic individuals having profound religious and spiritual experiences. This led to influential people changing career paths to focus on social activism and spirituality. By 1963, the results of the study were available and many people began turning to substances to seek mystical experiences.
However, after LSD was criminalized in 1968 – much to Hofmann’s disappointment – its use began to wane. People still use LSD both recreationally and therapeutically although, ironically, its criminal status has led to far more people using it recreationally. Few people are willing to break the law solely for therapeutic purposes.
Fortunately, in recent years, more and more scientific research is being done on the therapeutic use of psychedelics like LSD. While research on LSD largely came to a standstill since its criminalization, it became the focus of study after the turn of the millennium. One of the first studies was done in 2014 by Rick Doblin, an American drug researcher, which proved that LSD could help treat anxiety related to life-threatening illness.
Since then, more and more studies and organizations have delved into the potential of LSD. Groups like MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, are again popularizing the notion that psychedelics including LSD have vast therapeutic potential.
It’s a shame that Hofmann never lived to see the true fruition of his work. Having died on April 29th, 2008, Hofmann was last noted for giving speeches in defense of LSD and mourning the fact that its therapeutic potential was never fully discovered.
If only he’d had the chance to see the direction that psychedelic research was going a few years later.
Final Thoughts on Bicycle Day
The history of LSD and Bicycle Day is fascinating and filled with intrigue. While LSD’s original synthesist, Albert Hofmann, never intended for the drug to be used recreationally, there’s little doubt that his work changed the face of American culture – and, indeed, the world – forever.
Bicycle Day commemorates the first day that Hofmann experienced a full-blown LSD trip. Many psychonauts celebrate this historic moment by taking LSD themselves.
