"Abbott and Rushforth have a knack for entertaining readers." — BOOKLIST Two university professors set out to repeatedly bike the Great Western Trail , observing and writing about its variations with every season. The accounts of their adventures, however, refuse to be limited to flora and fauna. In Wild Rides and Wildflowers , Abbott and Rushforth share their deeply personal explorations of the male psyche, true friendship, biking, and botany. SCOTT ABBOTT is the author of a book about Freemasonry and the German novel, and of two books about travel and literature (with Zarko Radakovic): Repetitions and Vampires and A Reasonable Dictionary . He was the jazz critic for the Salt Lake Observer and has translated several works by Austrian writer Peter Handke. He is professor of integrated studies, philosophy, and humanities at Utah Valley University. SAM RUSHFORTH is former dean of the College of Science and Health at Utah Valley University. Under his watch, the university has grown to thirty–three thousand students. He studies aquatic botany and wetland ecology and has published more than one hundred papers and books. He has mentored nearly forty graduate students, who are now working all over the world. He lives in Orem, Utah. ​ Although Utah Valley University professors Abbott and Rushforth hail from very different academic backgrounds—Abbott teaches humanities and philosophy, while Rushforth is currently the school’s dean of science and health—for years they have shared a passion for tooling their mountain bikes down Utah’s slice of the Great Western Trail. When they set out to write a book about their biking observations, they envisioned an inspired hybrid of tranquil philosophy and nature writing. As it turned out, their meddlesome middle-aged angst and jousting personalities entered into the mix, and what emerges here is more of a mixed record, in a stylized journal format, of their spirited verbal exchanges, insights into both biking and academia, and their ardently expressed values about preserving America’s endangered wilderness. What sounds on the surface like fodder merely for a longer magazine piece actually works admirably well across its 300-plus pages, mostly because of Abbott and Rushforth’s knack for entertaining readers with quirky philosophical quips, layman botany lessons, and wittily delivered true-life anecdotes. --Carl Hays "Abbott and Rushforth have a knack for entertaining readers." — BOOKLIST " Wild Rides provides an intimate glimpse into the minds and hearts of two men, and the outcome is both surprising and refreshing." — DESERET NEWS "A highly versatile, smart, entertaining, incredibly informative book for readers of all ages and interests. Abbott and Rushforth's literary counterpoint and harmonizing are as humorously engaging as they are elucidating." — THE UTAH REVIEW "Ride along with Sam and Scott through spectacular landscape and share their vast knowledge of its many plants and creatures and the way their lives—and ours—turn with each new season." —CHIP WARD, author of Stony Mesa Sagas "It's like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets Desert Solitaire in Utah County." —SCOTT CARRIER, author of Running After Antelope "Sometimes you have to get on the bike and go out with the wild things if you're going to get there at all. Scott Abbott and Sam Rushforth show us the way. Mount up. Here's our ticket to ride." —CHARLES BOWDEN, author of Blues for Cannibals "Following the conversations and adventures of Scott and Sam in this work was a delight—my only complaint is that I was stung by an absolute desire to join them. The gusto and passion they have for this land comes through on every page." —STEVEN L. PECK, author of The Scholar of Moab "Imagine Plato's Phaedrus and a field guide to Utah fauna and flora left in an inside pocket of a sweaty, oft–used CamelBak get acquainted and copulate. The wise progeny, scratched and scented, philosophizing its way out, would be Wild Rides and Wildflowers ." — THE PROVO CANYON REVIEW SCOTT ABBOTT is the author of a book about Freemasonry and the German novel, and of two books about travel and literature (with Zarko Radakovic): Repetitions and Vampires and A Reasonable Dictionary . He was the jazz critic for the Salt Lake Observer and has translated several works by Austrian writer Peter Handke. He is professor of integrated studies, philosophy, and humanities at Utah Valley University. SAM RUSHFORTH is former dean of the College of Science and Health at Utah Valley University. Under his watch, the university has grown to thirty–three thousand students. He studies aquatic botany and wetland ecology and has published more than one hundred papers and books. He has mentored nearly forty graduate students, who are now working all over the world. He lives in Orem, Utah.