FRONT ROYAL The Skyline Drive specializes in solitude mixed with pulse-racing exhilaration. You can get that three ways as autumn colors come alive across the Blue Ridge Mountains. You can bike it, all 105 miles of the Skyline Drive’s ups, downs, twists and vistas. You can hike its backcountry trails through a land of ridges, waterfalls, hardwood forest and pesky bears.

MARIA HOWARDFitness It was the imagery of a bike race that got Harrison Strickler through his battle with cancer. So it’s fitting that his family chose a biking event to raise money for cancer research after Harrison regained his health. Harrison was 6 when he was diagnosed with a form of leukemia in February 2004. Nearly every night throughout his chemotherapy and radiation treatment, his mother, Leslie, would remind him that a bike race is grueling and that winners don’t give up. Harrison, who loved to ride his bike and had long admired cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, was strengthened by that reminder.

It has been three years since a Richmond-area police officer was killed in the line of duty, but officers here and across the nation will take time this week to honor their fallen comrades. Law-enforcement agencies in Richmond and the counties of Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico have memorial services and other activities planned today and tomorrow as part of National Police Week.

ROANOKE File this under Ideas That Seemed Good at the Time: On a late November whim, River Laker decided to sell his old Volvo station wagon to see if he could survive with a bicycle for six months. Only after the car was gone did he realize he was heading into the cold of winter. Since then, fellow Roanokers have watched the 42-year-old Laker, known around town as the Carless Brit (he’s from Folkestone in Great Britain), pedal through blowing ice and bitter winds, frigid temperatures and frosty mornings. His hands have nearly frozen on the handlebars, and his face has stung as if pocked with a dozen fresh pink dueling scars.