It started, like most bad ideas, with a cup of coffee, an overactive browser history, and a vague sense of existential unease.
Technically, I was looking for a gluten-free pancake recipe. What I found instead was a map of bike routes for cycling across America and a disturbing number of YouTube videos featuring perky, Lycra-clad people saying things like, “It’s not about the destination—it’s about the journey.”
It’s always the journey with these people.
One click led to another, and the next thing I knew, I was seriously considering riding a bicycle across the United States. From the Pacific to the Atlantic. Just me, a bike I don’t yet own, and several thousand miles of poor decisions.
There are, to be clear, many reasons this idea is objectively unwise:
- I am not a real cyclist
- I have a full-time job and a spine with strong opinions
- I was recently diagnosed with celiac disease, which means I now eat like a 19th-century mystic with a suspicious relationship to grains
- My mom is dying
- I’m turning 50
- Again, I’ve ridden bikes before, but nothing like this that required planning, padded shorts, or an intimate knowledge of chamois cream
So naturally, I decided to start a blog about it.
Let’s Back Up
A little context might be helpful here. A couple of years ago, I stopped running—not because I wanted to, but because my feet filed a formal protest in the form of sesamoiditis and something called Morton’s neuroma, which sounds like a villain in a medical drama. I’ve been a runner most of my adult life, not for speed or medals or anything noble, but because running has always been how I metabolized stress, sorted through big thoughts, and occasionally outran my own anxiety.
Losing it felt like being cut loose from something central. I tried to fill the gap with rowing, strength training, and walking, but nothing quite stuck.
Then came the celiac diagnosis. Surprise! Now everything you eat might be slowly killing you. Please enjoy your new life of sadness crackers and quinoa. Also, good luck eating at restaurants or, frankly, anywhere that isn’t your own sanitized kitchen. Hope you like rice.
Layer that on top of my mom’s cancer—lung, stage IV, metastatic—and the news that she likely has only a few months left, and you start to understand why I was scrolling maps of America like they might hold a clue, or a cure, or at the very least, a direction.
Why Ride Across the Country?
Because grief is messy.
Because I can’t sit still.
Because my mom is dying and I don’t know what to do and there’s nothing I can do.
Because I’m turning 50 and suddenly aware that life isn’t a rehearsal.
Because I want to do something big, something hard, something deliberate.
Because the idea won’t leave me alone.
I’ve done “big” before, sort of. I ran a half marathon in Antarctica. I trekked to Everest Base Camp. I’ve stared down icy wind and thin air and questionable airline meals. But this feels different. Not like an event or a trip or even a challenge. More like… a reckoning.
There’s something about putting my body in motion across an entire continent—mile by mile, state by state—that feels like the only reasonable response to everything falling apart. I can’t fix my mom. I can’t reverse time. I can’t undo whatever genetic cocktail led to me being both gluten-free and orthopedically compromised. But I can ride.
I think.
What I Know (And Don’t)
In truth, I haven’t committed. Not fully. I haven’t bought the bike. I haven’t mapped the route. I haven’t told too many people—anyone actually, mostly because I don’t want them to look at me the way I’d look at someone who said, “I’m thinking about sailing solo to Iceland in a bathtub.”
But I have started training, mostly in my mind. Imaginary spin classes. Visualized strength workouts. A growing pile of research tabs—this one is real. And now, this blog.
Because even if I never ride a single mile, something has already shifted. Starting this story—right now, before the saddle sores and the sunrise photos and the inevitable regret—feels like the most honest thing I can do.
I want to document this in real time. The fumbling. The planning. The tiny triumphs and slow collapses. The hope, the grief, the occasional snack review. This isn’t a polished memoir. It’s a ride in progress.
So, What Is This Blog?
It’s a place to tell the story as it unfolds. To document the lead-up to a cross-country ride that may or may not happen. To explore what it means to move through grief, aging, injury, and weird gut stuff with as much grace, grit, and sarcasm as I can muster.
It’s for anyone who has ever:
- Lost something they loved and needed to move through it
- Faced aging with a mix of curiosity, fear, and multivitamins
- Wondered what their next chapter might be—and considered writing it on a bike seat
- Thought, “Is this it?” and decided, “Maybe not just yet.”
Working Title: Wild Spokes
Because I’m feeling unhinged, and also because that’s what happens to my front wheel if I brake too hard.
Also: because it’s fun. And if this ride isn’t fun—even just a little—then what’s the point?
What’s Next?
In the coming weeks, I’ll be:
- Shopping for a bike and pretending I understand geometry
- Crying in a bike shop because someone says “aero bars” with no context
- Planning a training schedule that respects my job, my back, and my low tolerance for suffering
- Documenting every ridiculous step, including the likely moment I fall over while trying clipless pedals for the first time
There will be detours. Probably some metaphors. Definitely some carbs (the safe ones). And stories—funny, honest, and occasionally uncomfortable stories about what it means to try to do something big and hard on purpose, even when life feels anything but manageable.
Want to Follow Along?
I’ll be posting regularly-ish. If you want to come along for the ride—literally or metaphorically—sign up below.
I don’t do social media so email is the only way I’ll send out a message when there’s a new blog post, updates, training tales, thoughts on grief and guts and gear, and maybe a few jokes about chafing.
🚴♀️ Subscribe to Wild Spokes
(No spam. Just stories, probably written while sore.)
Mileage so far: 0
Confidence level: situational
Coffee consumed while writing this: 3 cups, no regrets