The other day, I picked up a call from my voice mail and got a blast from the past: a friend from Vermont who had led the very first bike tour I took. The memories came roaring back. It was Vermont in October and it couldn't have been any better. The autumnal colors, the other riders on the tour, that "something special" that's Vermont. As a novice rider who had just discovered the passion of cycling, I was then amazed to find I could be passionate about a place as well.

We had it all on that trip: sun, rain and frost. Roads that wound up and down. Inns that were everything from rustic to elegant but always welcoming. On those cold evenings, there were fires blazing in the fireplaces and home-cooked meals that never seemed to end. Plenty of glowing faces; all laughing and smiling.

Every day brought a new adventure. Whether it was sitting on the steps of a general store, huddling to stay warm between two obliging gentlemen (polar fleece had yet to be invented) or coming to grips with the concept of climbing a "gap", I was a stranger in a strange land and loving every second of it.

On the same day my friend called, I read a column by Brit Graham Watson, the celebrated cycling photographer who writes for Cycle Sport. He was melancholy about departing from the recent Amgen Tour of California. He wrote, "it was as if I was leaving behind a newly found lover and foreshortening a romance that seemed so strong and passionate, yet was too brief to truly appreciate or enjoy to the full. That's why I shall probably come back in 2007....in the hope that the romance I experienced can be repeated once more."

For Grant, it's bike races; for me, it's bike tours. Always searching for that special feeling. It's what makes us come back year after year.

Tailwinds,
Georgena
talktous@terrybicycles.com
www.terrybicycles.com