I pedal faster and faster until the bike glides over the wet tarmac. Vineyards rise up on my left, curving inward like the belly of a giant wave. On my right, the river trembles in the downpour. A sudden hiss from a brown-bodied goose leads me to nervously clench my handlebars, but bird aside, I'm all alone on the cycle path, and so I do something I haven't done since I was a child: I stand on my pedals, open my mouth and look up to catch the raindrops on my tongue.
