The First Big Ride: A Woman's Journey - Softcover

Hanner, Eloise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1581821441 ISBN 13: 9781581821444

Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing, 2000

Synopsis

An Inspiration for Anyone Who Wonders If the Time for Adventure Has Passed

This is the story of a middle-aged businesswoman who left a successful career to see if she could find something more meaningful to do with her life. A noncyclist, Eloise Hanner joined the first Big Ride (sponsored by the American Lung Association), in which more than seven hundred bicycle riders crossed the country from Seattle to Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1998. To Hanner, the ride represented a new beginning fraught with challenges and opportunities.

Starting from zero, she trained for several months to work up to where she could ride and average of more than eighty miles a day. What started as a bicycle odyssey, however, developed into a distilled version of life, where storms became life-threatening and strong friendships formed in days instead of weeks or months.

More than a travelogue, Hanner's account of the inaugural Big Ride is an examination of career and values and what to do with the second half of life―a question asked by many baby boomers as they approach fifty.

About this title

About the Author

Eloise Hanner was raised in the small town of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. After several years of working in Afghanistan and Kuwait, she was a stockbroker in San Diego for fifteen years. Hanner and her husband, Chuck, currently live and work in Paraguay.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The road ahead was straight and endless. It was exactly the same behind us, an uninterrupted line in a landscape that was flat and empty as far as I could see. I guessed that the horizon was about twenty miles distant. The next pit stop was five miles beyond that. It was already noon, hot, and the wind was coming from the side, which was slowing our progress. I took a long draw off of my water tube and got a mouthful of warm, plastic-flavored water. My handlebar computer was registering 12.4 miles an hour, which put me at least an hour and a half away. It was strange to find myself out here in the middle of nowhere, bicycling across this vast, desolate nothingness. I thought back to the beginning of this odyssey and how it began. The fact is, left to my own devices, I never would have done it. I certainly wouldn t have noticed the ad in the sports section, or if I had, it would have only been to exclaim about the stupidity of anyone doing such a thing.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cumberland House Publishing
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1581821441
• ISBN 13: 9781581821444
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256