He did it - and so can you

If Vegas had been taking bets on Julian Redman’s bid to ride an overgrown tricycle (minus one small wheel) from sea to shining sea, Press staffers Lisa James and Devin Heilman would be wealthy young ladies today.

And their managing editor would be broke.

Instead, Devin, Lisa and mankind in general all came out on top when Redman, a Coeur d’Alene man who dreams big and lives even bigger, completed his trans-America trek earlier this week on what’s known as a penny-farthing bicycle.

What’s incredible is that in half the time projected — it took him just one and a half months — the 28-year-old pedaled from San Francisco to Boston. That he did so on the unorthodox bike, without any real training, without any real support team along that 3,333-mile trail, leads to our guess that Vegas would’ve put Julian’s odds at something like 10,000 to 1. Equipment problems? Heat stroke? Injured by an unaware motorist? Food poisoning? The possible pitfalls are too numerous to name. Yet Julian Redman conquered every challenge.

As a result, Devin and Lisa collect one (1) coffee of their choice for backing the boy on the bike.

Everyone else banks some serious inspiration. Or do they?

Because it’s so easy, many of us are riveted to the wrong outcomes. We see the barriers just beyond our noses and back down. We refuse to tackle the toughest challenges, settling for participation medals. Why bother reaching when what you want might just end up landing at your feet anyway? And if it doesn’t, who really cares?

Well, Mr. Redman’s reminder is that many of us rank-and-filers have a lot more in our tanks — and our imaginations — than we might think. Pushing ourselves well outside comfort zones is the only way to begin to realize our actual potential and accomplish truly stellar goals. Riding in the shadow of history on an old-fashioned bike is just one way to do that. But we think it’s a pretty cool one.

As the late, great Christopher Reeve said: “So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Here’s to making all good things inevitable.