Tahoe Weekly Article by Tim Hauserman
https://thetahoeweekly.com/2023/06/alenka-vreceks-she-rides-powerful-memoir-of-adventure-love/
Alenka Vrecek’s Tailgate Talk | June 20 | 7 p.m. | Free | Alpenglow Sports | Tahoe City
Alenka Vrecek’s book, “She Rides: Chasing Dreams Across California and Mexico,” will arrive in bookstores on June 13. It tells the tale of the longtime North Tahoe local’s solo 2,500-mile, mountain-bike ride from her home in Carnelian Bay to Baja.
At age 54, she set out on the momentous ride after some tough years that included a serious knee injury, a diseased colon that nearly required removal, breast cancer, a car crash that severely injured her daughter and a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis for her beloved husband Jim Granger.
“She Rides” is entertaining and powerful and is much more than a great travel/adventure story. It’s also a stunning memoir about Vrecek’s emotional journey to move past all the challenges she had just had to face. It’s also a touching love story. And finally, it will be inspiring and rejuvenating for anyone who is facing any of the issues that Vrecek faced.
The idea for the ride, according to Vrecek, “was born from when I was at a low point after the dissolution of my marriage. I’ve always been an adventurous person and wanted to get on my own and do something by myself.”
“After what was happening to me and [my husband], I needed to build my confidence back after all I’d gone through. Also, when you face mortality and other difficulties in life, you realize, if not now, when? Am I going to just be the person reading about other people’s adventures? This was my Everest.” –Alenka Vrecek
But her ride idea languished for 15 years as she lived a busy life raising her three children. Then she faced several difficult years.
“After what was happening to me and Jim, I needed to build my confidence back after all I’d gone through,” she said. “Also, when you face mortality and other difficulties in life, you realize, if not now, when? Am I going to just be the person reading about other people’s adventures? This was my Everest.”
So, she went on to conquer her own Everest and then sat down to inspire others with her story.
A key part of the story is the courage it took both Vrecek and Granger to deal with her absence on a months-long journey. Vrecek realized that if she was to live this dream, she had to leave him home, even though with Parkinson’s he was facing his own challenges. She knew he would worry about her the whole trip. But she also realized that as Granger’s disease progressively got worse, now might be her only chance to take this journey.
“It takes courage to let people go and trust that they will return back to you. In that lies the power of true love,” she said.
During the ride, she ran into obstacles and grueling riding conditions. There were times where she was desperately searching for water or a place to lay down her head, while using every ounce of energy to climb that next mile. But she also found incredibly generous people, especially in Mexico, who came to her rescue with food, water or crucial information at just the moment she most needed it.
Vrecek feels that in the end the greatest lesson from her trip was the realization that: “Home is not a physical place. It is where the people that love you are. You can make a home wherever you are.”
Riding 2,500 miles is challenging, but Vrecek discovered that writing her story was also difficult.
“This book is not about the ride, it’s about life. Life is messy and I had to be vulnerable. Revealing my personal life was tough living in a small community,” she said.
“One of the big challenges with major illnesses like cancer, is that during treatment you get lots of love and support but then when you are done and trying to move on, you get stuck. There is a life after cancer, you have to get through it and I want to inspire and encourage people to go on,” she said.
While being older might have made the ride harder, Vrecek said, “We are getting older, but we are also getting wisdom. It is good to share some of our bits of wisdom. I wanted to make sure it was not going to be a poor-me book. I wanted it to be relatable. I always wanted to do this, and now I’m going to do it.” | alenkavrecek.com
by Tim Hauserman:
Tim wrote the official guidebook to the Tahoe Rim Trail, as well as “Monsters in the Woods: Backpacking with Children” and the children’s book “Gertrude’s Tahoe Adventures in Time.” Most of the year he writes on a variety of topics, but you will find him in the winter teaching cross-country skiing and running the Strider Gliders program at Tahoe Cross Country Ski Area. He has lived in Tahoe since he was a wee lad and loves to be outdoors road and mountain biking, hiking, paddleboarding, kayaking and cross-country skiing.
