20 Wishes - I'll start wtih 4

I’m reading a novel called 20 Wishes by Debbie Macomber. It is a light and easy read about a group of widowed women of various ages who decide as part of their healing process to each develop a list of “wishes.” What I liked about this is that the wishes are NOT goals or resolutions, just hopes, dreams, desires that may come to be once they are acknowledged by writing them down.

It’s a little like the story line of the movie the Bucket List but more hopeful!

When I was out riding my bike on Sunday I started to come up with a list of wishes related to biking:

1. Turn a corner decently. Anyone who has ridden with me knows I can’t turn a corner to save my life. My body just doesn’t want to lean into a corner so I slow way down, turn the corner, then sprint like ____ to catch up with the rest of the group. I read once that happy people focus on their abilities and unhappy people dwell on their flaws. As I really doubt my cornering will improve drastically, I choose to focus on what I can do well!

2. Own a Bike Friday. My husband and I would do long road trips in his mid-life crisis (red mustang convertible) and I would cover part of the miles each day by bike. This is my fantasy…..we would stay in cute little B&B’s, I would get up early and start biking towards the next night’s destination. Charlie would meander around and explore things I have no interest in (typically related to cars or tractors), he would pick me up at a designated spot and I would fold up the bike and put it in the trunk and we would drive to the next B&B where I would clean up and we’d have a relaxing evening. I need a Bike Friday because a bike rack is not allowed on the mid-life crisis. In other words, my mid-life crisis and his mid-life crisis are not compatible. It’s a good thing we still are after 29 years of marriage!

3. Own a touring bike and trailer and ALL the gear including the camping stuff and one of those cute little laptop computers so I could keep a travel diary on the crazyguyonabike website along the way.

4. Wakonda would be a cycling Mecca…there would be about 50 cyclists that lived here; some would be faster than me and some would be slower but the majority would be riders who average the same speed as me. There would always be someone to ride with no matter what type of ride you wanted. The fast ones would push me to ride faster. Okay, that’s my wish, as long as I’m wishing, I might as well wish big….but in reality, I would be happy to see at least one other person in my town or around the area with a road bike!