The First Big Ride

The First Big Ride: A Woman's Journey, by Eloise Hanner, is the story of the first Big Ride across America from Seattle to Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1998. This is not the story of an athletic event so much as it is an inspiration for everyone who sits at a desk and wonders if the time for adventure has passed them by.

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An Inspiration for Anyone Who Wonders If the Time for Adventure Has Passed


This is the story of a middle-aged businesswoman who left a successful career to see if she could find something more meaningful to do with her life. A noncyclist, Eloise Hanner joined the first Big Ride (sponsored by the American Lung Association), in which more than seven hundred bicycle riders crossed the country from Seattle to Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1998. To Hanner, the ride represented a new beginning fraught with challenges and opportunities.


Starting from zero, she trained for several months to work up to where she could ride and average of more than eighty miles a day. What started as a bicycle odyssey, however, developed into a distilled version of life, where storms became life-threatening and strong friendships formed in days instead of weeks or months.


More than a travelogue, Hanner's account of the inaugural Big Ride is an examination of career and values and what to do with the second half of life—a question asked by many baby boomers as they approach fifty.