team building

The company (and department within it) that I work for has it's head on straight: it really understands the value of building strong, cohesive teams. Once or twice a year each team heads out and spends an afternoon together doing activities that are unrelated to our jobs but bring us together in a focused but social atmosphere. One summer we all piled into a dragon boat together (teamwork required, for sure!), another year we went horseback riding, and this spring we went for a bike ride along the West Dyke Trail in Richmond.


The flatness and the water reminds me of Amsterdam, where I did do a typical visitors' bicycle tour when I visited a few years ago. (Dykes, windmill, cheese farm/clog factory-- you know the drill.) I'd love to go back and spend more time independently exploring the country by bike and seeing both rural and urban cycling from their perspective.

I was happy to find out that many of us had our own bikes to bring along (more than I would have thought), and only a few (including several of our colleagues visiting from other offices abroad) rented. Even those folks were happily at home on a bike; no one didn't know how. Although there are people who simply stop riding as adults, it's basically unheard of for anyone to not have learned as a child. That's something not to be forgotten when trying to encouraging more adults to take more trips by cycle... why did we enjoy riding as children/teenagers? Why did we stop? Why do some adults still enjoy it?

Tangent. Anyway...



To complete the afternoon, we flew kites. (Also requires teamwork.)

I've always said that riding on two wheels feels like flying.