I’ve lived in rural Japan, where a bicycle was my only means of transportation, and I biked at least an hour a day just going to classes and the grocery store; where I panted and sweat my way up hills and flinched at the spiderwebs draping across my face as I rushed downhill.
I’ve been to Amsterdam, where a sea of bicycles line the sides of every building and every bridge, so tangled and chaotic I couldn’t imagine finding a single bicycle, much less extracting it.
I’ve spent summers in small town Michigan, biking to town for brightly colored superman ice cream cones and to watch sunsets at the harbor, watching the colors shift and melt and dance across the surface of the lake.
I live now in Seattle, where cyclists in brightly colored spandex, with taut chiseled calves and sporty sling bags and rearview mirrors affixed to their helmets, labor beside SUVs and sedans.
But passing a man in an untucked plaid button down and slacks cycling past the interstate, my immediate thought was that be must be a Mormon missionary, the only individuals who would bike in the blanket of humidity and endless heat of Florida.
