Why we bike together.

"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 Hemmingway)

I've been missing the chance to get out bike. It is getting harder and harder to find a free afternoon that is not too cold, or windy. And I miss my friends from the New Friends Bike Club. Hopefully we will be able to get out next Saturday, but it is a little early to schedule this. As I was thinking about biking, I found the quote by Hemmingway.

A bicycle is a good compromise between walking and driving. I walk a lot, but don't find the same joy that I do with biking. It's a little too slow. But driving is too fast. Biking is just right. I get to see the country up close, and have the connection to it that is provided by the labor of getting up the hills and across the miles, And when that biking is done with a friend, it adds to the pleasure. (And yes Andrew, I do know that there are some places we just have to hike, because a bike won't get there.)

There is nothing like biking up a steep hill or a long distance with a friend. And I recently found out why.

"Researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone. The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared." (Tara Parker-Pope"What Are Friends For? A Longer Life" in the NY Times (April 20, 2009))

So New Friends Bike Club Members, when I'm at the foot of a steep hill, I want you by my side.