Here’s to the other kind of bikers….

Who don’t call it a race but a journey, who don’t care about the end but the means, who don’t survive but live, who don’t win but wander, who don’t reach but get lost.

Here’s to those kinds of bikers who don’t ride on bikes. They ride on discoveries.

Discovery of a lost diner. Discovery of daisies. Discovery of a war memorial. Discovery of an elapsed trail. Discovery of sun-set. Discovery of a thrift store. Discovery of a wet puddle. Discovery of art out of graffiti. Discovery of the city’s heart. Discovery of the city’s wind.

Discovery of hundred years old apartment buildings, of a forgotten alley, of a dog-park, of a lake, of the best view of the city skyline.

I biked for twelve miles yesterday on a bike that wasn’t even mine which took me two hours but it seemed like twelve. Not because I was tired but because I had seen so much. I had the control over my road. I decided the directions. My choice was my compass.

I noticed the bikers’ signs and bikers’ lanes all around the city. I had never noticed them before. I noticed the love-nods, some you-are-a-nuisance-nods and some you-are-not-a-biker-nods too. I started feeling the weather. I knew just how long it would take for the sun to set from the course of the wind and the shadows. I started listening to voices of nature and unspoken conversations.

This kind of biking is not a sport. It is an experience.

…here’s to the other kind of bikers.