“You may have to take my word for the fact that traveling by bike is superior to traveling by car. All right—I will allow that it’s very, very different. Especially in the dark: the road seems to tilt ever upward, and you start imagining things. There will be rivers rushing in the blackness near the roadside; there will be a cliff looming overhead. You can ride into imaginative space, which is real traveling, because you are not anchored by anything. Look around. There is nothing between you and the weather, the smells, the color of the sky. All impress themselves on your consciousness as if the ride had turned it to wet cement. And there they will stay, apparently forever, so you can recall those sensations with an almost frightening precision years later.”