One of the things I love most about cycling is that it keeps people in tune with reality. The feeling starts with your connection to your bike. As you ride, your body dovetails perfectly with the pedals, seat and handlebars. There could hardly be a snugger fit between a person and a machine.
Cycling fosters an equally intimate union between your mind and your surroundings - as if the connection between your body and your bicycle were some sort of fulcrum bringing your awareness and the wider world into synchrony too. As you cycle, your environment bursts with detail, beckoning you to look closer. You notice little things.
Sounds resonate - birds singing, pedestrians laughing, leaves rustling. Smells come and go with the breeze - freshly cut grass, a lake, the aroma of a chipshop. Sights light up - friendly faces, cotton wool clouds, the intricately patterned tarmac passing beneath you.
In our virtual reality modern lives, cycling is a great reminder that reality itself contains more to marvel at than any simulation of it. The internet is a wonderful thing; but the world is more so.
I've started a facebook group designed to remind people of the wonderful world beyond the web. There used to be a TV programme called Why Don’t You?, which advised people to ‘switch off the television and do something more interesting instead’. Viewers wrote in and suggested fun activities which didn’t involve TV – playing games, making things, learning tricks, going on trips, that sort of thing. I hope my group 'Internet dead end' will provide a similar antidote to going online.
