Coast to Coast for Hope

Maybe that title is a bit of an exaggeration.  Winter doesn’t necessarily mean that people cease all physical activity.  Nonetheless, as we slide past Thanksgiving and toward the New Year, most people spend a little less time "doing stuff" and a bit more time taking it easy.  The days are short.  Food is hearty.  Your bicycle may have gained a cobweb or two.  Perhaps you are very ambitious and have it set up on a trainer.  I know that I don’t…

The next time you are walking outside in the cold, on a cloudy/frosty day, perhaps feeling a bit sluggish, stop and think for a moment:

What are you doing next summer?

Are you approaching a period of transition?  Maybe you are graduating from college.  Perhaps you will be switching jobs, or taking some time off.  Maybe you sit on the precipice of retirement. 

In periods of transition, we often try and map out a blueprint for what we intend to do next.  There often isn’t  a blueprint for plans to hop on your bicycle and pedal for a few thousand miles.  Then again, there isn’t really a blueprint when it comes to cancer or any life threatening illness for that matter.  And that’s a compelling reason to consider taking the journey of your life and bicycling for a good cause.

Six to seven months from now, you may find yourself halfway across the country, racing the setting summer sun to fit in a couple more miles before you make camp.  Your water bottles empty, you drink an entire liter of Gatorade that you buy from a country store and think about how excited you are to enter a new state tomorrow.   The next morning, you pass another group of riders heading in the opposite direction.  They tell you how lucky you are to be heading in the direction that they just came from because the land is so stunning.  But you secretly smile, knowing full well how beautiful the ride that they have ahead of them is going to be.  You get a call from your folks; you’ve just exceeded your fundraising goal thanks to a large, anonymous internet donation.  You imagine yourself handing an oversized check to the Hope Lodge that you are riding for.  Do they really make those oversize checks or is that just something from movies?

Don’t stop imaging.  Take a moment and consider this bicycle ride before you decide to let the thought pass.  Maybe the time will be right, maybe the plan will start to present itself.  You never really know what’s around the next corner.

What are you doing next summer?

-Brian