This Road I Ride: Sometimes It Takes Losing Everything to Find Yourself by Juliana Buhring

Author:Juliana Buhring [Buhring, Juliana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2016-05-23T22:00:00+00:00

SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

Today I have returned to Putty Road—to the exact spot where I encountered Cher’s doppelgänger last night. Marty is a motorbike buff, and he explains that this is a popular road with bikers. He has ridden it a few times at night himself. Every five to ten minutes motorbikes race around the bends, often in large groups. I assume they have come up here for the scenic ride and the empty road. I can see the attraction of biking, the rush you get from speeding down an open road. Even from a touring aspect, it beats being in a car, watching it all pass by from behind the glass, insulated from the sounds, the smells, and the elements, like seeing the world on a TV screen. On a motorbike, there is no barrier between you and the environment: you can feel the wind, you can smell the smells. But you are still in fast forward. Speeding by, you cannot possibly notice all the small things.

On a bicycle, you are inside the movie, an essential part of it. Completely reliant upon your environment, you observe and absorb every sensation around you. You feel every change in terrain, the texture of the road, the direction of the wind, every ascent and descent, the constantly shifting weather. You smell every plant and flower, every rotting roadkill carcass. You hear every birdcall, every insect and animal. You take in the country, and the country takes you in.

If you really want to experience the world, get on a bicycle.

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