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BEGINNINGS...

TWO – the equivalent of one plus one. One rider. One machine.

WHEEL – a symbol of expression of movement and multiplicity.

DREAMER – one who lives in a world of fancy or imagination – a visionary.

My father, my middle school English Teacher, once shared a poem with our class entitled “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. The last stanza goes like this –

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

And that it has! Taking the road less beaten and doing much of it on two wheels has given me the opportunity to search and keep searching to find within a completeness, an identity, a deeper sense of fulfillment. In some way, we all are in constant pursuit of happiness. But for most, finding and sustaining that gratification is, and always will be, nothing more than a pipe dream.

One cannot become a doer if he is not first a dreamer. The world around us is full of people who think that the difference between a dreamer and a doer is prosperity, capability, capital, or expertise. You don’t need any of those to dream. The real difference is that dreamers spend a lot of time thinking about and planning for things they would like to happen, but which are improbable or impractical. Dreamers dream and doers do. Dreamers never make the time to put their plans into action. Doers fulfill an internal promise to themselves upon setting a goal that the ultimate destination will be reached by commitment to taking action.

TWO WHEEL DREAMER parallels the wheel of life, or a life balance wheel. The concept is that you can find contentment and peace of mind if you can find the balance between each dimension of life. Imagine your wheel being a symbol of victory. In order to achieve victory, you must have balance. Balance comes in the form of each spoke on your wheel being representative of direction (making the right decisions), destiny (taking control), navigation (staying the course) purpose (life’s path), discovery (a device that takes you new places), and perseverance (doing something despite difficulty). If any one of the spokes on your wheel isn’t “true” – one whose rotation is in alignment, your path will be unpredictable and uncontrollable.

As I told every player on every team I ever coached, in route to 500 plus wins over 24 years, “The only thing that you can predict in life is its unpredictability.” So anticipate it. Be ready for it. When you dream, make unpredictability a known factor. If you know ahead of time that you will face obstacles, it won’t be a shock when one rolls your way. Using your balance wheel, you will find that the wheel of life can become your Coaching Wheel. As American novelist Emma Straub once said, “You are the captain of your own ship. Don’t let anyone else take the wheel.”

I hope you will join me as we take the road less travelled. We all have a story to tell, and I am eager to share yours when we meet on this infinite journey we call life.

Gustave “Gus” Van Cauwenberghe was my mentor and trainer while I was preparing for my 714-mile Race Across America bicycle race qualifier. A Belgian-American, Gus won his last U.S. National Title at the age of 77! On one of our training rides with Gus, who was a man of few words, he noticed that my mind, body, and spirit were not in sync on this particular day. He simply turned his head from his riding position in front of me, and said “Keep the wheels moving forward.” To this day, I have never forgotten such a simple lesson, but it is a lesson that has made this Two Wheel Dreamer go from dreaming to believing.