Bicycle Day (Psychedelic Holiday)

Bicycle Day is a global holiday on April 19th celebrating the psychedelic revolution[1] and commemorating the first psychedelic trip on LSD by Dr. Albert Hofmann in 1943, in tandem with his famous bicycle ride home from Sandoz Labs.[2][3] It is commonly celebrated by ingesting psychedelics and riding a bike, sometimes in a parade,[4] and often with psychedelic-themed festivities.[5] The holiday was first named and declared in 1985 by Thomas Roberts, a psychology professor at Northern Illinois University,[6][7] but has likely been celebrated by psychedelic enthusiasts since the begining of the psychedelic era, and celebrated in popular culture since at least 2004.[8]

On April 19, 1943, Albert Hofmann ingested 0.25 milligrams (250 micrograms) of LSD. Between one and two hours later, Hofmann experienced slow and gradual changes in his perception. He asked his laboratory assistant to escort him home. As was customary in Basel, they made the journey by bicycle. On the way, Hofmann's condition rapidly deteriorated as he struggled with feelings of anxiety, alternating in his beliefs that the next-door neighbor was a malevolent witch, that he was going insane, and that the LSD had poisoned him. When the house doctor arrived, however, he could detect no physical abnormalities, save for a pair of widely dilated pupils. Hofmann was reassured, and soon his terror began to give way to a sense of good fortune and enjoyment, as he later wrote:

... 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 ...

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