The First Big Ride: A Woman's Journey
Eloise Hanner
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," as the saying goes. This certainly applied to Eloise Hanner, a forty-something woman who signed up to rider her bicycle across the United States, even though she had never ridden more than ten miles in one day. The First Big Ride: A Woman's Journey is the story of a middle-aged businesswoman who left a successful career in search of something more meaningful to her. A non-cyclist, she joined the first Big Ride (sponsored by the American Lung Association), which started with 1,000 riders attempting the 3,000-mile ride from Seattle to Washington, D.C. in the summer of 1998.
"I wish she could act her age," was her mother's comment. "You are throwing away your career," was the verdict from colleagues. But for Hanner it was a new beginning filled with challenges and opportunities.
Starting out as a relative novice, she began the intimidating preparation of training to ride an average of more than eighty miles a day, in a ride that would eventually take Hanner — and the reader — from the starting point in Seattle to the grassy Capitol Mall in D.C. What started as a bicycle odyssey developed into a distilled version of life, where storms threatened lives and strong friendships formed in days instead of years. Between the challenges were the simple joys — such as seeing the delight on the face of a ten-year-old boy when she stopped to buy a cup of lemonade or her lying quietly in a tent at night listening to a bagpiper play "Amazing Grace."
The First Big Ride examines career, values, and what to do with the second half of life, a question asked by many baby boomers as they approach fifty. The author began by asking herself what she had really accomplished after twenty years in the corporate world. And, of course, a bigger question loomed ahead: What was she going to do next?
This is not the story of an athlete but of an ordinary person. It is an inspiration for everyone who sits behind a desk and wonders if the time for adventure has passed them by.
 | 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, recently joined the Peace Corps and spent several months working and living in Paraguay. |
$12.95, Paperback
ISBN-10: 1-58182-144-1 (Paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-1-58182-144-4 (Paperback)
Paperback Currently Available
