It’s all too easy to get blasé about where you live, what you do and where you ride. We so easily forget to notice and appreciate all the little things in life that make it comfortable, fun or unique.
Take tea bags, for instance. Live in a foreign country for any amount of time and you’ll know that the only tea bags in the whole damn world that make a proper cuppa come from our sweet isles, and our isles only. Whenever I travel, I always take British tea bags with me in order to knock up a proper brew, but even then it just doesn’t taste the same – it must be something to do with our water or milk. Back in the UK, a cup of tea is just a cup of tea – I mean, I love it, but it’s just a drink. Take it away from me though, and GODDAM!
It’s the same with a lot of things – familiarity can make stuff seems less exciting, so when you’re pounding the same little roads, day in, day out, they can seem like nothing special at all. The grass is always so much greener where everyone else in riding, the sun is shinier, the climbs more spectacular. But “all it sometimes takes is a change in season… and oureyes can once again be reopened to the scenery that we travel through on two wheels.”
Being based in a really rather lovely part of the world, ASSOS of Switzerland know a thing or two about beautiful landscapes, and visiting them for a ride around Lake Lugano is a real treat for me. But they know that there are other brilliant aspects that rival that Ticino sunset, and some of them are right where you already live if you keep your eyes open and mind curious. After a recent visit to see me in Devon, the brand shared the story of their trip and some gloriously bleak photographs of me freezing my something or other off.
Check it out and read the story of my return to the UK.
Photos: Phil Gale for Assos.
