THE NEXT MORNING, just as I'd imagined, Saulius and I rode off on what he dubbed the Democratic Tour of Lithuania. We planned to pedal from Kaunas to the sea and back, a 400-mile loop, camping wherever we found ourselves at the end of the day and living off local markets. From the start, there was an ease to the trip that made me feel as though we'd been touring together since childhood.

That first morning we slid west along the Nemunas River, Saulius showing off the medieval castles and Gothic cathedrals that overlook the sleepy green waterway.

"Lithuania was independent country for 500 years," he stated proudly from the top of one castle turret.

Under the reign of the Grand Duke Algirdas (1345–1377), the borders of Lithuania had extended from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. The geographical center of Europe lies in Lithuania, and it has always been a Western-leaning country. Unlike Russia, Lithuania fully embraced the Renaissance. The first book written in Lithuanian was published in 1547, and Vilnius University was founded in 1579.

That night we pitched our tent in a cow pasture. In the morning, we cycled along narrow, tree-lined roads, through brilliant yellow fields of rapeseed, all the way to the coast. A motorboat, owned by a father and son who had started a ferry business after independence, took us out to the Curonian Spit, a 61-mile arm of sand dotted with summer communities. We beach-camped on the Baltic, sand in our gears, the sound of the waves in our ears.

On day three we winged north along the spit from the seaside resort town of Nida (loaded with thick-calved Germans), through the port city of Klaipeda, and on to Palanga (loaded with mayonnaise-skinned Finns). Tourism appeared as buoyant as a beach ball.

In the years since independence, Lithuanians, industrious and entrepreneurial, have made their country the most successful former Soviet republic. Privatization of once nationalized companies is almost complete. Business is thriving, from bioengineering to banking; exports are robust; and in 2004 Lithuania was accepted into the European Union.

Our fourth day out, we circled back inland, visiting the farmhouse of family friends who had also been sent to Siberia in the late forties. When I asked Saulius if any of his family had been deported, he said, "No. My uncle was shot."

After World War II, during the early years of Soviet control, an armed underground resistance formed in Lithuania. Eventually numbering 100,000 partisans, the movement fought a guerrilla war against Soviet occupation until 1953, when it was finally crushed. Saulius's uncle had joined the resistance in 1948, at the age of 24, was caught by the KGB, and was later executed in the forest.

That afternoon, Saulius guided me to another remote farm he felt I must see: the gardens of sculptor Vilius Orvidas (1952–1992), a deeply religious, mystical man who devoted his life to opposing the occupation. His farm was a strange labyrinth of gargantuan logs and monumental religious and Communist sculptures, the antithesis of the Stalin World theme park. On one heavy slab of black granite, Orvidas had depicted the USSR as a giant spider, its hairy legs reaching into Europe, Asia, and Siberia. Across the top of the rock was inscribed communism is the sorrow of the world.

On the last day, looping back into Kaunas, we rode together without talking, mile after mile. We were in unison, and words were redundant. Just riding together again, after so many years, was enough.

Outside of Kaunas, Saulius took me by the castlelike home of a mafia boss, explaining that prostitution, corruption, and drug use have increased in Lithuania in the past decade.

"It is one small bad side of capitalism," Saulius said exuberantly. "But at least we have independence!"