My aunt would say, "Come! Let us take the iron horses and leave the real ones to play in the pastures and forests." So we went biking often, through the country that was a canvass for the seasons, a theatre for the birds who played upon wing.
I love biking. I love it all year round. That feeling of motion, the speed and the rise and fall of the path, the chance to go over grass, mud or road... It is a freedom I will always crave. That sort of liberty is a gift, is it not? A privilege of movement, to build the self strong whilst having such fun. And so, as I pass the cars that pollute, the passengers cow-like in the seats, I am the racer on my iron-horse and I take a turn into the park, enjoying the scenic short cuts and the song of the birds.
Humans are the fastest land endurance mammal, and so when we combine that with a bicycle, we get a truly astonishing way to travel and have fun. We can take the treats out of our homes and choose a coffee shop (or a pub or a bakery!) a few miles away as the only place we will allow ourselves to get a treat at, then we soon see that amazing endurance land mammal in action, no more procrastination! We get biking. We get to our destination for the small treat we love, then bike home feeling it was worth it. The result? We get the sort of health everyone needs and deserves. It's a life-hack of sorts, a tweak, and it works.
I'll never get used to the sway of the bike rack behind the car, I know it needs to have some give but it unnerves me to watch it move so much over the smallest of bumps or pot-holes. When we get there and unload the bikes the worry is forgotten sooner than a three item shopping list. The wind is fresh, the sun is bright, the fragrance cleaner than fresh laundry. In a few minutes our bikes are moving down the trail like they have motors, our legs moving up and down almost without effort over the flat ground. Ahead is the river and the bridge that arches so perfectly it must have been constructed with more math than I want to think about right now. As we head over it we lean forwards on the pedals, pushing down with our body weight. Then we coast to the loose shingle on the other side and bear left along the bank. Somewhere people are in offices, stressed, somewhere babies are being born, somewhere people are fighting, dying. I can't help all that. But what I can do is take the kids out in the sunshine and let that moment sink into my memory to treasure forever. We'll be back biking in a few days, maybe the same place, maybe different. It's a shared time and always fun so long as the youngest decides how far we go and when we turn back. I love it.