Vermont’s fiery autumn colours took my breath away. They also, in a manner of speaking, bruised my knees, grazed my elbows and left my head spinning. To be fair, it was mostly my own fault.
After a happy morning cycling the byways of New England’s most picturesque state I’d become overconfident in my brakes and my abilities. I was gawping at the views when I should have been eyeing the road. So it was that, hurtling round a bend while rubbernecking at a particularly winsome patch of russet and sodium yellow forest, my front wheel hit a patch of grit and I went flying over my handlebars. I had, I reflected ruefully, become the cliché: I’d fallen for Vermont.
Some venture to Japan, Bavaria or