Bicycle Love

Goodspeed's theme of her story is that there are rewards to stepping outside of your comfort zone. This can be seen when she talks about her lack of knowledge in biking, traveling alone and France. However, she decided to take a solo bike ride around France and it ended up being an amazing experience. One use of language that struck me as effective was the capitalization of her bikes' names, which served to personify them and show how valuable they were to her. The second was her use of French phrases. This helped me understand the confusion that comes with being in a different country and how the author was able to overcome language barriers. By the end of the story, she had grown to love the bike and also became more comfortable conversing and asking for directions in French, meaning her pilgrimage was rewarding.