单车旅行美好时光.docVIP

单车旅行美好时光 　　远离城市的喧嚣，融入自然的静谧，以自己双腿的力量见证大地的起起伏伏，以惬意的心情去感受自然奏出的乐章，在空旷的原野露营，在点点繁星下入梦，看日升日落，品世情冷暖，这就是单车旅行带来的美好时光。 　　 　　Why ride hundreds of miles on a bicycle when you can drive in a car, or better yet fly in a plane? Why camp in the insect-infested forest when you can sleep tight in a luxurious hotel? Why cook rice over a camping stove in the cold and rain when you can eat exotic and gratifying foods from fancy restaurants? Is a bicycle tourist just a loner driven by masochism1 to undertake anachronistic pilgrimages2? 　　Far from it. With just a few quixotic3 tendencies between us, we, Ian and Geoff, rode from Waterloo to Vancouver together last summer. It was the best time of our lives. A trip in a plane, or even in a car, will certainly get you to your destination. You can even sleep the whole way there. Or you might try to pay attention as the world goes streaming by, but it’s all a blur. You don’t see the moose in the forest, and you don’t see the mountain as a humble and impregnable4 expression of antiquity. 　　It is difficult to relate the profound pleasure of bicycle touring; it’s a pleasure that takes root deeply in the soul. To feel the land rising and falling under the power of your own legs, to take immense joy in every bit of food that you consume, to understand the way in which the sun rises and sets on the farms of Saskatchewan. I profess it is not possible to understand the majesty of the Rockies without having ridden across the Prairies to witness them rise out of the ground. 　　Camping! Sleeping nightly under the simple stars, I have never slept better. In northern Ontario I would wake myself in the middle of the night to look at the mysterious blanket of stars above, to see the secrets of their ascent5. We wake shortly after sunrise and pack our sleeping bags and tent, our lives, into our panniers and clip them onto our bicycles. We take off down the road, pushed along by a tailwind so we are hurtling6 at 32 kilometers per hour. 　　We have no obliga