Fifty Rides

Fifty Rides began as a feeling — partially forgotten scenes of sunsets and curving roads rushing back as I prepared to part with my first motorcycle. So many rides had gone by, most with good stories and personal insights. It seemed a shame they hadn’t been recorded better.

So, I challenged myself to journal fifty rides in fifty weeks.

Over the next year the Fifty Rides blog recorded my rides on motorcycles, bicycles, kitesurf boards and one train, preserving the insights and routes. But it did more than that…

Getting fifty rides in was no problem. The challenge was gleaming insights worth sharing, remembering them, and taking time to synthesize them into well-written essays. That struggle forced me to be brutally honest. I couldn’t hide away personal thoughts because I needed material to finish the project. So I confronted addiction, anger, friendship, parenting, technique, failure and success. I questioned the ride and myself.

People connected with that openness and told me so. The material was frightening to release, but readers — friends, family and strangers on the internet — identified with the struggles I revealed. While sharing my unique insights, I was reminded how much we all have in common. Most of the time, if you're worried that no one will understand what you're going through, someone else is going through the same thing and is looking for the courage to share it, too.

Now that Fifty Rides has been published as a book, I hope it can deliver that honesty to new people, spurring conversation and informational exchange. While the writing touches on the technical aspects of riding, it also examines how the lessons from a physical discipline can radiate out into the rest of life. Another way of saying it is that physical awareness and mental awareness feed back into one another. In this way it is accessible not only to motorcyclists, bicyclists or kitesurfers, but to anyone that enjoys a good ride and is trying to figure this dang life thing out.