Hemingway

 

It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.  Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.  ~Ernest Hemingway

 

I may not like Hemingway, but he got this right at least. On the bike in the last month I’ve seen the weeping rocks of spring hiding off a dirt road, ridden through a narrow elevation band where the morning fog froze to every pine needle encasing it in a glittering shell, hop-frogged a raven who seemed to be watching out for me and flying within meters of me for three miles along the Peak-to-Peak when my legs were shot, and been cooled by the spray of spring run-off fueled Class V+ rapids along the Colorado River.

 

On a bike is the most efficient way to learn of the land. Soon my wheels will be learning of the remote roads of Iceland.