Bicycles remind you how to live - in Vermont

It was, at first, kind of like the first day of school; everyone was a bit nervous, but anxious to get to know one another. Soon enough the conversation flowed, spearheaded by the bubbly Ms. O’Connor, who talked about riding through the cypress-studded hillsides of Tuscany. We chatted about families, jobs, children and, once again, bike rides.

SHOOT: Great piece from The New York Times. Just look how beautiful it is.

clipped from travel.nytimes.com IT took a few miles to work the kinks out of my legs and churn up the first hill, but the payoff was spectacular. Lake Champlain sparkled blue in the distance, with the Adirondack Mountains rising stately in the background. Lush green hills were peppered with red silos, livestock and a white steeple far off. And then there were the trees, a patchwork of scarlet, orange and yellow that transformed a vista into something so perfect it almost didn’t look real. This, I thought, was why people came to Vermont in the fall. The burning reds, fiery oranges and golden yellows were breathtaking no matter how you looked at them. But the landscape took on a whole new magnitude when you ditched the automobile, put on some layers and went leaf-peeping on two wheels. That’s how I, with 15 other riders, spent a sunny October weekend last year, pedaling up and down the rolling green hills of Addison County, a hub of Vermont’s dairy industry.