The road less travelled.

One of the great joys of biking is travelling the road less travelled.  I take great delight in reading other peoples blogs, on how they have travelled roads that many ad void.  Of late I have been reading a lot of such adventures.  You ride that road simply because it is there and you haven't done it before.  The thrill of finding forgotten treasures, stunning scenery, the ultimate biking road, inspires and motivates us to seek out the forgotten roads.  The result is often full of surprises and delight.

"Kiwi road sign"

In a car it is always the direct route.  You need to get some where, and the quickest route is the one taken.

And lets be honest, when you are in the car you only want to get to your destination, and normally not interested in seeing anything else in your travels.  It is not as if you get in the car and say "lets takes that really windy and twisty road with the nice views, you know the one, the one that makes me throw up every time we do it in the car"

Trying to explain to the non biker why you have chosen the 300km route home and not the 110km one often falls on deaf ears, and you get that "Deer in the headlights look", as if we are missing a marble or something.

I was explaining recently to a person I knew that I had just been to Cape Reinga, ."Why on earth would you go all the way up there?" they asked.  It seemed a some what pointless excise to try and explain it.  The answer being simply  that it was there.

I have discovered I am wasting my time  explaining my actions, because non bikers just don't get it! and they never will.  To them they see biking as  a dangerous, and reckless pursuit which can only end in disaster.  They don't understand the concept of it at all, the camaraderie of fellow bikers, the passion and freedom you feel when on the bike, the joy of seeing a 65km road ahead of you with no straight bits, the shear adrenalin rush as you lean the bike into corners, feeling at one with the road and the bike.  That sense of exhaustion after a 600km day, yet once showered and relaxed that is all forgotten, and you go to bed dreaming of the great day just been, and hanging out for the next one.

I remember my first ever weekend away on the bike after I got back into it, I remember distinctly coming to a cross roads, if I turned left  my destination for the night was just 60kms up the road, but if I turned right my destination would still be the same but I would be adding another 200kms to it.....I turned right.  Nothing has changed I still always choose the longest route...