Even with grey overcast skies, it was a very pleasant and mild bike commute today. There were even places along the route where the sounds and smell were more reminiscent of spring than late summer. These are things you can't experience in a car. Cycling opens up a whole new appreciation for the environment around you. A fellow cyclist forwarded the following quote which seems most appropriate: "It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle." -- Ernest Hemingway