When I lived in Poland, I got into cycling. I bought a mountain bike, bought a road bike, and then my wife and I decided neither was for us: touring is where it’s at! So I converted my mountain bike into a make-shift touring bike and we set off. Every possible weekend, we packed up a few changes of clothes and a camera, and we headed off.

One of our favorite trips was from her home village of Jablonka to a town in Slovakia called Liptovsky Mikulas.

It was a short ride (just a touch over 40 miles), but it had one significant climb of just over 2,000 feet.

If you’re wondering what that looks like, we took a picture:

Those mountains in the distance — we’d just ridden over them.