"Explore on two wheels."

That's a quote on a sticker I received from Adventure Cycling Association. Pretty cool, eh?

Recently I've been thinking a lot about biking. It all started with a dream I had in which I continued a journey started (and amazingly completed, I might add) by Ann Keefer, the aunt of an adorable boy named Larry. She walked 600 miles to raise money for the Lowe Syndrome Association. In my dream, I continued her journey in Indianapolis and ended in California. However, I was not on foot, I was on a bike. The dream was so vivid I have not yet forgotten it, nor the inspiration it caused after I woke up. I don't know whether or not I will be able to actually reach my goal of a cross-country charity bike trip but the idea of it has opened up a possibility that has changed my mindset. The logistics of it are so immense, I'm not even sure where to begin but nevertheless, I have.

I am working on fixing up my bike, I'm starting to get in shape, I'm doing crazy amounts of research and reading, and setting little goals. For instance, my first goal is to be able to carry my bike down my apartment stairs. Baby steps, right? :)

I'm remembering how much I love biking. When I was a kid, my bike was one of my best friends. I remember clumsily learning how to ride a bike with my dad's help in the backyard. I remember the first banana-boat bike, which I cruised around on, sharing the seat with my best friends. My first ten-speed was a momentous occasion. When I saw the bike in a garage sale, my parents very lovingly purchased it, along with a helmet. Each day I would look forward to hopping on my bike and rolling around the streets, never knowing what I would see or who I would run into. There's nothing like it. The wind in your ears, no limit to where you can go, it was exhilarating. When I was in college, I got a fantastic mountain bike hand-me-down from a roommate. With a splurge of a brand new set of tires, an old portable CD player, and a few excellent mixes, I shortly became in the best shape of my life. So what's the appeal now? The open road. Independence. The ability to "explore on two wheels." I want it and crave it like never before.

I picked up a book today which has a quote I was struck by. The title of the book is "How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle : Reflections of an influential 19th Century Woman." by Frances E. Willard. Frances was an extremely important woman in late 19th century. She was extremely vocal and quintessential to the woman's suffrage movement and believed that bicycle riding was something women could learn and enjoy as much as men. She first hopped on when she was 53, visiting a friend in England. This quote is what she believed a bicycle would actually say to its rider:

"There has been but little authentic talking done by four-footed animals; but that is no reason why the two-wheeled should not speak its mind, and the first utterance I have to chronicle in the softly flowing vocables of my bicycle is to the following purport. I heard it as we trundled off down the Priory incline at the suburban home of Lady Henry Somerset in Reigate, England, where I was staying.

"It said: 'Behold, I do not fail you; I am not a skittish beastie, but a softer, well-conducted roadster. I did not ask you to mount or drive, but since you have done so you must now learn the laws of balance and exploitation. I did not invent these laws, but I have been built to conform to them, and you must suit yourself to the unchanging regulations of gravity, general and specific, as illustrated in me. Strange as the paradox may seem, you will do this best by not trying to do it at all. You must make up what you are pleased to call your mind--make it up speedily, or you will be cast in yonder mud puddle, and no blame to me and no thanks to yourself.

"Two things must occupy your thinking powers to the exclusion of every other thing: First, the goal; and, second, the momentum requisite to reach it. Do not look down like an imbecile up on the steering wheel in front of you--that would be about as wise as for a nauseated voyager to keep his optical instruments fixed upon the rolling waves. It is the curse of life that nearly everyone looks down. But the microscope will never set you free; you must glue your eyes to the telescope forever and a day. Look up and off and on and out; get forehead and foot into line, the latter acting as a rhythmic spur in the flanks of your equilibriated equine; so shall you win, and that right speedily.

"'It was divinely said that the kingdom of God is within you. Some make a mysticism of this declaration, but it is hard common sense; for the lesson you will learn from me is this: every kingdom over which we reign must be first formed within us on what I as a bicycle look upon as the common parade ground of individual thought.'"