Biker’s Diary: The Best of Ten Years

Biker’s Diary started in 1999 as a weekly column in a local newspaper then known as the River Valley Reader, now the Bluff Country Reader. Located in a very popular tourist area, the publisher’s plan was a newspaper that emphasized local arts, culture, and recreation. Dr. Jan applauded that effort, and had spent a year as a community columnist for another paper, so she submitted some sample columns and proposed this column, written by a biker. Ten successful years later, she was asked by a faithful reader is she intended to publish the columns in a book. That started her thinking, and she asked her publisher for permission to do so, which was granted. At the beginning, Dr. Jan was living in Lincoln, and commuting to her and Spouse Roger’s country place near Lanesboro MN. Upon retirement, they chose that country place as their primary residence. Those locations – and the people along the way – provided fodder for the mill of writing, as have the many places around the world to which they have both traveled and/or at which Dr. Jan has worked. The column started out as a way to capture the ambling and sometimes philosophical thoughts and experiences triggered by almost-daily time spent on a bike. When a serious illness got in the way of biking, the habit of writing about life became almost a tension reliever as she wrote about that experience. In the years since it started, the column has evolved into writing about anything and everything she and others experience in life. This book captures some of the best of those first ten years.