Have you ever made new friends by bike?

One big benefit of working as a bike guide is the people I get to meet. I always wanted to work in a setting, where I would meet and work with people internationally. Only a few years ago, I would not imagine that working as a bike guide would be my answer to doing this. Professions and careers are sometimes as unpredictable as the weather in Northern Europe.

Do you know that cycling with other people is an amazing way to create new friendships?

In the past years of cycling in the Côte d'Azur for pleasure and work, I have made some of my best friends here through cycling. There is something to discovering new places of an area, of your own limits and other people's ways of being when you are out on a bike. You are in a social setting out of chit-chat coffee rooms, meeting rooms, bars, restaurants - and whereever else you normally tend to meet up with people.

Basically, you share an experience that connects you in ways that sitting around a table doesn't. Your body and mind operate in different ways as you are physically and mentally active at the same time. This means that you communicate and create bonds in other ways.

In the past few months I have met people from all over the world, who I shared a few hours - or many hours - on the bike with. And had wonderful conversations en route. From Mexico to India. British shipping managers to American business owners-to-be in the lumber industry and current cycling adventurers in the Colorado mountains. Software engineers from Mumbai to salesmen of trucks from Denmark. Plus the yacht captains and administrators, translators, hotel administrators, chefs, engineers, radio broadcasters and so on who happen to have settled in this beautiful area like me and love to spend time exploring it by bike.

It really is amazing how much you can learn through meetings with people from around the world. Life and development happens through so many more ways than through books, meetings in conference rooms or digital spaces during long working hours in cooperate offices. Try to make it happen by bike!