Pete on the Monterey Peninsula
Many Thought for the Weekend readers are extraordinary people. I’d like to introduce you to one: Pete. We first “met” when Pete sent me an email that began:
“Hi Bob, You have been sending your messages to one of our crew members for some time now. He shares them with me from time to time and I really do like your thoughts. Please add my e-mail address to your mailing list…” I was honored that Pete then told me about his passion for cycling and asked my advice on how I might approach fundraising for his upcoming event. This was the start of a lively email exchange on many Friday mornings.
At the age of 60, Pete is still cycling on what he called in one of his emails to me “little bicycle excursions”. His last “little” bike ride was an 8-Day, 525 mile tour of the California coast. This was his 7th time riding for the Arthritis Foundation’s California Coast Classic. Pete had the largest team (nearly 30 riders) which raised the most money ($75,000) for this fundraising event that benefits the Arthritis Foundation.
John Howard said: “The bicycle is a curious vehicle; its passenger is its engine.” And Bill Strickland remarked that “the bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon.”
I confess that I cannot imagine mustering the strength, will and determination to power my own mode of transportation 525 miles. It would be about as remarkable and entertaining as this dog riding a bicycle. (For more animals showing up us humans on bicycles, click here).
That said, much like John F. Kennedy, I agree that “Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a (leisurely) bike ride.”
Indeed, there are many life lessons to be learned from riding a bicycle:
- If you fall down, pick yourself up and get back on
- It’s easier if you travel with friends
- Everything is temporary (that hill won’t last forever!)
- You have to climb before you can coast
- A bad attitude is like a flat tire; if you don’t change it, you’ll never go anywhere
- And, as Albert Einstein so astutely observed: “To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
Pedal forward this weekend,
~Bob
