This is something I used to have a lot of fun doing in Korea:

I’ve met a number of people in Korea who share my enthusiasm for biking, especially in the countryside. We organized a group to go on a recent summer weekend to Jeollabuk-do (전라북도), about three hours southwest of Seoul. To beat weekend traffic we left very early on Saturday morning and headed for Jinan County (진안군). On our way down we stopped for breakfast – remarkably fresh and delicious – at a roadside rest stop; I wish American highway rest stops served fresh beancurd soup (순두부 찌개). In Jinan County we drove by its most famous sight: Maisan (마이산, 馬耳山), “Horse Ear Peaks” with its two extraordinary rock peaks. We admired the peaks from a distance and eventually stopped in the small village where we would base up for our two-day bike ride.

My son James is visiting Korea and he was especially glad to join in the bike ride. Over the years, James and I have mountain biked together everywhere we’ve lived or traveled, throughout the U.S. and overseas. It’s a great way to see the countryside and to learn more about how people live. Some people think that mountain biking is about young, tough guys racing down steep, rock-strewn trails. But the kind of mountain biking I do is what I think of as “farmer biking,” using sturdy, fat-tired bikes to explore the back roads. I was happy to see that Korea remains a great place for this kind of riding, and I was glad to meet Koreans who also enjoy these types of trips. [Visit Korea]

Read the rest, but I used to ride around some of the back roads in Northern Gyeongi-do on my bike and the ambassador is right that this is a great way to see some of the back areas of Korea.  Also she got to ride in a really scenic area of the country because the twin peaks of Maisan are quite spectacular along with being the location of one of the most unusual Buddhist temples in Korea.