The Girl On Bike

There comes a moment in everyone’s life when stepping out into the unknown seems much safer than trying to survive a familiar place of pain and struggle. Such a moment arrived for Colleen Hannegan when her deepest desires for happiness and freedom forced her to run away from an increasingly violent marriage. Finding strength through the love of her family and friends, Colleen discovers the way back to her self when she takes a walk down to the end of the sidewalk near her new apartment and steps onto the dirt of a wilderness park.

“The boys teach me that being out here is what matters and the rider with the dirtiest bike at the end of the day probably had the most fun, and the least fear. Out here on a dirty bike, I’m learning that fear is my teacher. My fear helped me to see that I needed a way out, a better way, to make new choices for my happiness. It brought me here, to the end of a sidewalk and to the beginning of a new dirt path, inviting me to play.” -Colleen Hannegan There comes a moment in everyone’s life when stepping out into the unknown seems much safer than trying to survive a familiar place of pain and struggle. Such a moment arrived for Colleen Hannegan when her deepest desires for happiness and freedom forced her to run away from an increasingly violent marriage. Finding strength through the love of her family and friends, Colleen discovers the way back to her self when she takes a walk down to the end of the sidewalk near her new apartment and steps onto the dirt of a wilderness park. In Girl On Bike, Colleen shares her intimate journey of heartbreak and happiness when she buys a mountain bike and learns to ride the trails of Aliso and Woods Canyon Wilderness Park. Nature becomes her go-to-place for exciting adventure, new friends, emotional healing and romance. Struggling to run her retail business alone, fighting to maintain her self-respect through divorce court and continual calls to the sheriff for protection, Colleen rides the wilderness park each Sunday to hold it all together. The story of a girl on a bike will have you riding along the single-track trails and wanting to discover nature’s magic elixir of your own, as you follow this exciting story of one woman’s unrelenting rides into the truth she knows will set her free. Every trail adventure takes you along the bumpy rides of doubt and worry and fear to the top of the mountain. From there, you’ll learn what the fellow riders who come to her rescue, teach her about true friendship, relationships and love. Ride along with the Girl on Bike and let her joy and triumphs fill your heart with the courage to find your way back home.

Colleen Hannegan is a writer, professional speaker, certified business advisor, personal life coach for women in transition and a life long entrepreneur. She writes about change, about business and a variety of topics pertaining to the nature of things. Her articles and essays have been featured in SheWrites.com, betterafter50.com and Golf Extra. For more than thirty years, she has enjoyed a career in optical retail management which included owning her own successful optical shop for twenty two years in southern California. She sold her business in 2012 and continues consulting other small business owners as an efficiency expert. Of her many studies in the healing modalities of spirit, mind and body, Colleen enjoyed her two years study program in Shamanism and became a Certified Corporate Shaman.