I♥Biking: Stopping to Smell the Roses (well, books, actually)

When we drive anywhere, we're using a Modo car, which means we have a booking for a specific window of time. Most of the time we can extend our booking, but even so, we're generally trying to get home at a specific time to return the car. These car trips are direct, to the point, and don't involve much spontanaeity. Even when we owned our own car, we still mostly just went from point A to point B, without looking around us much or stopping at the drop of a hat to check something out.

Cycling, on the other hand, is much less scheduled. We may have somewhere to be at a specific time, but there's usually a little wiggle room to pause for a moment if something catches our eye while we're passing. It's also much easier to pull to a stop & hop onto the sidewalk or turn into a park when biking. Because we're travelling slower than in a car (though not much slower in the city, actually) without windows & steel around us, we can see, hear and smell the world much better.

I snapped a picture of one of those "stopping to smell the roses" moments recently, on a trip back from New Brighton outdoor pool. There are quite a few of these tiny little neighbourhood book exchanges in East Vancouver. Our route passed three of them, so we stopped to peruse the selection.

What was your last spontaneous stop on a bike? Do you find that you are less likely to stop when driving than you would if you were biking or walking?

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