Postcards in your head

I wake up somewhere other than my own home. In a hotel room, a hostel. At someone else's house. In an apartment, a cottage. I left and traveled for hours by car, plane, train, or all of the above. To drive. Because I don't know of a better way to discover the world.

I am with my fiancée. Or friends. Perhaps alone. A road bike, gravel bike, or mountain bike by my side. As soon as I open my eyes, I consider the day's route, unaware of what awaits me in terms of encounters, landscapes, and people.

I wolf down my lunch, then devour the miles. Almost everywhere I stop, people take an interest in me.

When traveling, cycling is a social lubricant. Whether you're alone or in a group, the locals in the area you're exploring and where you stop to buy food and drink will bombard you with questions.

Where are you from? And you come here to ride? Yes, ladies and gentlemen. It's paradise here.

Here, as elsewhere, people often overlook the beauty that surrounds them in their daily lives. That's normal. We get used to everything, even the most spectacular things. The passing cyclist reminds them of the splendor of their surroundings. When I praise their country, I often feel that I am a source of pride for them.

And then people see me differently when I arrive by bike than when I arrive by car. In a car, I'm an intruder. On a bike, I'm still an intruder, but I'm tiptoeing in. I've made an effort to get here. That seems to command a certain amount of respect.

And it reminds us that there are other ways to see the world.

Even seasoned cyclists practice slow tourism. Panting their way up endless mountain passes, they drink in the immensity of the mountains before them. They move at a different pace, mentally collecting postcards for their own enjoyment. As they exert themselves, the meditative rhythm of their pedaling makes them think. They absorb the entire place, and it becomes part of their identity.

Wherever I go, I create an album of human experiences that no Instagram in the world can reproduce. It's a kind of compendium of thoughts, existential reflections, and other components of an intimate monologue that attaches itself to photos like a Socks . It's always with me. In the cloud of my memory.

Cyclists avoid the straight lines of highways. They take the old roads. The coastlines that pass through crowded villages that seem forgotten. Mountain passes that ancestors designed for horses to travel, or that soldiers traced for donkeys to pull cannons between two inhospitable fronts. Winding roads, sometimes in hostile territory, but designed with the aim of easing the effort.

Whether I am alone or with others, these bike trips are for me like these trails. Winding. Imposing slowness. Forcing the eye to look far ahead to better see the beauty that surrounds us. And that allows me to be better with myself and with those who share my journey.

There is something both simple and sublime about this experience of the world. The body, mind, and heart moving forward together. Stories written along the way, kilometer after kilometer. Sometimes dramas. A fall. A theft. A loss. A "bad" day. Endless laughter. Accepted solitude or beautiful, happy silences "together."

Then I return. I wake up at home. And as soon as I open my eyes, I start thinking about my next trip.