A dear friend with whom I often share rides with MTB around the mountains in my Trentino wrote two lines describing what for himrepresent our "escapes" among the noises of the forest. I agree fully with his thoughts and I want to add that i consider myself  a privileged having the possibility to jump on the bicycle (just having one is a privilege itself) and within minutes find myself immersed in the woods and nature. I find the words of Ale intense and deeply true ...

The bicycle?
What relationship we have with fatigue and kilometers we ride; what does push us to remain hours on the saddle, sweating and coming home with backache?
Almost everytime the company of a friend with whom you can share these hours of freedom. But when we are alone, where our thoughts do arrive? It is often directed towards a multitude of things ... I do not know list! There are too many, thoughts.
Recently I read a short story I want to tell you, to which each of us can think during their exits:

One day an Indian decided to leave his reserve to visit his white friend who lived in the city, which brought him immediately to take a walk. Even in the midst of the deafening noise of traffic and crowds, the Indian hear a cricket singing and shows the animal, hidden among the leaves of ivy on a wall, to his friend who had not heard. "Indians have certainly finest hearing than us!" said the friend. Then the Indian did drop a coin on the sidewalk and many passersby stopped looking on the ground and one picked the coin. "See, the Indians have not better hearing. It is that everyone hears what he wants and is accustomed to hear…."

Despite my frenetic life, full of people, students, books, technology (not too much) and kilometers (more with car than with mtb), I am happy to be able to hear the call of the wood with all its "noises"…