Being forced off the Eagle  by last week’s pothole and forced to see the Irish back roads the same way cars see them on my recumbent these last few days, the magic is definitely  gone from my rides.  People ask me all the time why I ride such a seemingly old and unwieldy machine, my Eagle. Well missing from my two-wheel time on the road now  is not only the view over the hedges that line pretty much all the roads over here but the vast panorama that let’s me see Ireland as the storybook checkerboard of many different agricultural parcels that make it what it is.

It is from my high perch that I can see what is meant when people say the Emerald Isle has a hundred different shades of green. Not to mention all the patchwork   of ditches that keep these lands drained that the car driver or conventional  bike rider do not even know to exist.  This as I also  get a look at all the many farm animals that seem to prefer to stay away from the front lines

The way I see Ireland on the Eagle  is almost how it looks to me when I fly In from America Unlike the 500 mph  view I get when I look out the Jet window, on my HiWheel machine from yesteryear, the real Ireland  envelops my senses  All at 10 miles an hour! On the Eagle I smell the farms at work. I feell the cooling  moisture that almost always fills the air and the numbing drone of an airliner’s engines is replaced by the deliciousness of quiet that the infrequent car or tractor interrupts.

btw: I do have to admit, however, it is a lot easier to stop and take pictures like the one above when I am on my recumbent or Mtn. bike…..