Getting outside on my bike and into nature is what kept me sane though the long months of COVID. The pandemic hit the Seattle area early, only a month or two after we returned from our last international bike trip in South Africa. I remember the beginning in early March 2020 feeling more surreal than frightening, my business partners and I taking our team on a ski outing to Crystal Mountain and, over lunch and beer in a crowded ski lodge, talking about how we’d be working from home for a few weeks to help “flatten the curve” and everyone saying they looked forward to being back together in April. Then came the recognition of what we were in for, a truly global pandemic with daily death counts tracked on the front pages, confusing and often contradictory information about health risks and precautions and the blurred sense of days, weeks and months passing in a state of mildly anxious monotony. There was the sense of social dislocation that came from endless Zoom meetings, trying to communicate through masks, the sad atrophying of city life and, with one cancelled social engagement after another, the sense of life slowly losing its texture and richness. Yet, despite the uncertainty, fear and sadness caused by the pandemic, it also opened up the time and space for moments of immense beauty: From hiking the Enchantments, summiting Mt. Rainier, rafting the middle fork of the Salmon River and cycling up Mt. Lemmon, to the many many long weekends spent riding, hiking and skiing in the gorgeous Methow Valley and bike touring to the many beautiful camping destinations within easy reach from Seattle. We feel so fortunate to live in such a beautiful part of the world and be healthy and fit enough to enjoy it in the way we do, especially so these past few years. Here are some favorite photos of pandemic era cycling adventures.