A woman is calmly peddling a bicycle along the shoulder of a road on a bright summer day, the tiny head of a tiny dog poking up from a basket on the handlebars. In the rear of her red, single-speed cruiser hang two, wire-frame baskets holding reusable grocery-sized bags.

Not an uncommon sight, if you’re in Berkeley, Calif. But this was just the other day in Wall Township. Right there on New Bedford Road, near Belmar Boulevard.

A woman, who had presumably just done some shopping in Colfax Plaza — North Wall’s equivalent to Main Street — peddling home on a Not Giant, Gas-Guzzling SUV.

The sight was sublime in its simplicity. And it got me thinking, waxing really, about the simple act of bicycling.

* * * *

The first bicycle I remember that I rode outside of my driveway was a used, 24’’ Schwinn 5-speed Stingray.

It was painted a sparkly orange color, like the paint jobs on the toy motorcycles you see on kiddie carnival rides. It had a stick shift that sprouted from the top tube a full foot tall, mimicking the shifters you’d see in muscle car magazines of the late 1970s. The handlebars were tall and laid back, pushing you into the spacious banana seat, which also sparkled orange.

I loved that bike. Rode it everywhere. It was, like it was for nearly every other American kid, the gateway to my first taste of freedom – a way to expand my known universe beyond the confines of my own yard and from under adult supervision.

Suddenly I could go places. I could do things. I could make, sometimes poor, choices. I could go left; I could go right. But most importantly: I. Could. Go.

* * * *

But in this country, the bicycle goes in the garage one day and just doesn’t come back out, except, maybe, for a rummage sale. So was it with me. My sparkly Schwinn was eventually replaced by a steady stream of automobiles.

I’ve had a lot of cars in my life. Few of them were memorable, and none of them hold the same romance as my Stingray.

Cars go fast. That’s part of the appeal. But it also blurs the landscape along the way, taking you one step away from your surroundings. You can travel a whole chunk of miles in a short time. But you can’t possibly notice any of it along the way – not the change in temperature from sunlight to shadow, or that you’ve just passed a honeysuckle bush, or, say, that tiny Revolutionary War-era cemetery just a couple miles from your house you may have passed dozens of times before, as I did on one of my recent bicycle rides.

So that’s what this yet-unnamed bicycle column is about, I suppose: the liberating act of cycling. I’ve recently re-discovered a love for cycling after a long and painful relationship with the automobile.

I’m hoping you can help out with naming it. I’ve tried a few things that just haven’t rocked me: “Along The Ride” and “Old Spokes Home” among them. If you have a suggestion as you read this in the coming weeks, I’d love to hear it.

Also, if you have a route you’d like me to ride and write about, I’m open to that, too. I have a mostly daily route of about 15 miles I like to take, but more scenery is always a good thing.

Leave all suggestions in the comments section below.