Ah, France on a bike. Anyone could love cycling through the postcard-perfect rolling countryside, humming "La Marseillaise" and stopping every couple of hours for a bottle of cabernet and a baguette.

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Maybe so. But Anderson's trip was not so leisurely. He had to travel 750 miles within 90 hours, leaving little time for sightseeing. Or eating or sleeping, for that matter.

"I finished it in 84 hours, but I can't account for about 50 of those hours," says Anderson, who has become something of a local cycling legend. He also manages North Road Bicycle Co. in Raleigh.

The grueling trip was Paris-Brest-Paris, a test of two-wheel endurance that makes its more famous, professional cousin, the Tour de France, look like a B&B tour by comparison. P-B-P, run every four years, was begun in 1891 by a French newspaper editor bent on stretching the realm of popular marathon riding to the point of breaking even the most determined cyclist. He also hoped to sell a few newspapers.

That said, it seems a little odd that Anderson would choose his P-B-P experience to convey his love of cycling: covering 40 miles in just two hours to make a checkpoint deadline near the end, crawling on his hands and knees in the wee hours to find directional arrows and losing track of time from exhaustion.

Is his perspective a matter of youthful enthusiasm enhanced by the passage of time? After all, he was 26 when he entered the race and he's 45 now.

Uh-uh. Anderson says he appreciated the experience the moment he crossed the finish in Paris. Plus, he plans to return in August to do it again.

If you've driven much lately on the country roads of the Triangle area in sunny spring weather, you may have noticed the looks on faces of cyclists. Those looks may help to understand Anderson's attitude. Sure, those faces may show exhaustion or perhaps a trace of pain. But chances are good they also include a few looks of pure contentment.

What is it that makes cycling on the open road such an intoxicating experience?

Of late, there's no denying that the success of a certain American in a sport dominated by Europeans has had its impact.

"There's certainly the Lance phenomenon," acknowledges Mark Herndon, manager of the Cycling Spoken Here store in Cary.

That's "Lance" as in "Armstrong," who's shooting for his fifth straight Tour de France victory in July. Many in the cycling community credit him with stirring a surge in road cycling after years of decline. The National Sporting Goods Association says 54.6 million Americans age 7 and up rode a bike more than once in 1992; by 2001 that figure had dropped to 39 million. Last year, though, the number had risen to 41.4 million. In addition, local bike shops and clubs report participation in group rides continues to rise.

While some riders are drawn by the need for speed, others are attracted to the more simplistic lifestyle that a bike affords.

When Adrian Hands of Raleigh gave up driving a car a couple of years ago, he expressed his disdain for the automobile and its attendant drawbacks (citing 38 complaints on the Web).

"I had been driving a gas-guzzling conversion van that had just broken down -- again, and it seemed like keeping a car safe and legal was more hassle than it was worth," says Hands, who now relies on his trusty Fuji to get around town.

For most, though, Anderson may have more accurately captured the bicycle's allure for most cyclists. Though he raced for 15 years and somehow finds pleasure in the difficult Paris-Brest-Paris experience, he isn't attracted to the thrill of victory/agony of defeat cliche. He's drawn by the same thing that makes kids crave their first two-wheeler.

"There's a certain freedom," Anderson says . "I like getting out on a new road. If I come to a fork and I know where the one way goes but not the other, I'll take the other every time."

With such a lust for discovery, you might think a car would be more efficient. It's a matter of quantity versus quality, Anderson says.

"In a car you might as well be in your living room," Anderson says. "It's like being in an insulated box.

"On a bike, your senses are alive. When you're hot, you're hot. When you're thirsty, you're thirsty and when you're hungry, you really know you're hungry."

Also, if you're on a bike, aren't you more likely to notice the old soda pop machine with 15-cent Nehis outside a long-abandoned grocery on a country road. Would you even notice it if you went by in a car? (Note: This is a trick question; the odds of your even being on such a road diminish significantly when you're in a car.)

Besides, some of us think of travel without the image of a stereotypical dad, gripping the steering wheel -- intent on making good time.

"Someone once said, 'The best way to get from point A to point B isn't always the quickest,' " Adrian Hands recalls.

"Cyclists never forget that."

Staff writer Joe Miller can be reached at 812-8450 or jmiller@newsobserver.com.

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