High on my Adirondack Coast lifestyle list — my mental “Aren’t we lucky to live here?!?!” database of people, perks, and activities that add incalculable value to my existence — is bicycling backroads and byways from the shores of Lake Champlain to the Adirondack High Peaks. Sometimes solitary, sometimes accompanied by a friend, these pedal-power adventures through the Boquet Valley and rolling foothills, are like mini vacations, adventures concurrently familiar and exotic. From adrenaline pumping thrills to mellow meanders, shaded forests to bucolic farmland, breezy lakeside routes to stream and river crossings, the diversity of conditions, terrain, and landscape is captivating.
Often something catches my eye, and I stop to observe. An industrious beaver engineering a dam. A bald eagle breakfasting on a landlocked salmon. A team of draft horses pulling a blue shirted, straw hatted farmer through rows of crops, leaving a wa