Riding with the Blue Moth

By Bill Hancock

Book Overview

Bill Hancock led a charmed life. He married his high-school sweetheart. He had two successful sons and a beautiful grand-daughter. He ran the NCAA men's basketball tournament. In the ascension of his career of college athletics, he moved within the echelons of the top sports figures in the world. On January 27, 2001, everything changed: a small Oklahoma State University airplane crashed in a snowstorm. Ten people died that evening; one of the passengers was Bill's son, Will Hancock. Bill and his wife, Nicki, coped with how to survive the loss. Yet, they knew that they had to go on living for one another, for their marriage, as well as for their son, Nate, for Will's wife, Karen, and for their young grand-daughter, Andrea. Bill, who had run 15 marathons, chose to bicycle across the United States in an effort to confront his grief, head-on. He and Nicki started the journey in Huntington Beach, CA and concluded at Tybee Island, GA. Ultimately, the 2,747-mile journey from the Pacific to Atlantic coasts, became something much more important than a cycling trip of coping. It became a journey in discovery as well as one of recovery. RIDING WITH THE BLUE MOTH (Publication Date: June 2, 2015; ISBN: 978-1-936946-57-0; Price: $17.95; Nautilus Publishing) is part-memoir, part-travelogue, and part-homage to a son, whose life was taken from him, in a short moment in time. It is a story of example, of how a person can recover from tragedy, and loss, and then find peace and stability. On his journey, Bill battled searing heat and humidity, aggressive dogs, unforgiving motorists and dead armadillos. As he rode, his thoughts continued to return to two common points: Will being gone forever and the prospect of how their family would move forward. As he rode across the country on his bike, he began to term his grief the "blue moth," riding on his shoulder, as he powered through nine different states and landscapes, as Nicki drove the highways before him to set-up for their evenings at camp-sites. The pesky "moth" that fluttered around Bill was a modified beaming lamp in an empty parking lot. Some suggested, before he hit the road, that he use medication instead of exercise; some suggested he get back to his job. Bill chose to battle his situation as an emotional journey, as an infantry solider on a Cannondale bike. After 36 days, traveling through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, Bill put his foot in the Atlantic Ocean. He made the journey, and the "blue moth" remained on his shoulder, in the same way that his son always would remain in his heart. Yet, he had made it, both physically and emotionally, and he had proved to himself and anyone else who has suffered through grief, that people have the mettle to stand-up, dust-off, and get on with life, if they actually want it bad enough. RIDING WITH THE BLUE MOTH is an example of how a man was determined to beat-it, did it, and was brave enough to write about it in a way to inspire people, all people, who have faced challenges, head-on.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1936946572
• ISBN13: 9781936946570
• Release Date: May 2015
• Publisher: Nautilus
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Age Range: 14 years and up

Customer Reviews

How to endure the unendurable

Bill Hancock has written an exquisitely crafted memoir out of his heartbreak. Pedalling across the country was a means of coping with unbearable pain, and in doing so, he exorcised (as far as was possible) some of the agony of losing his son, Will. His odyssey is also an accidental biography of the nation, in the small, incisive portraits of some of the people he encountered on the way. Taking the back roads as a means of avoiding the worst traffic, he encountered backyard America in all its variety. In writing "Riding With the Blue Moth' he has given us a memoir, a valentine to his son, and a legacy for his granddaughter.

A great book for anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one or will...so basically EVERYONE!

Bill tells the adventures of his bike ride across America and the pain he went through that led him to his journey. This book will make you smile, cry and want to spend as much time with your loved ones as possible. Since it grips you like a vice from the beginning it won't take long to finish it and it may even inspire you to buy a bike!!!

Great Read

Riding the Blue Moth is an adventure that takes the reader well beyond the mileage. The pure physical toil grows insignificant to the emotional heartache. But like the challenge of every new day, when the sun comes up, Mr. Hancock accepts what lies ahead and perseveres. He shows that human spirit and love of family, however beaten in his grotesque loss, rises above all else. By the end of the journey, it is clear that peddaling was the least of Hancock's effort and merely wetting his feet in the Atlantic was the least of his triumphs. The only thing more remarkable than the ride is the man.

Riding Off Into the Sunset (and Ocean)

"Riding With the Blue Moth" by Bill Hancock chronicles not only the grief of losing a son, Will, in the Oklahoma State basketball team airplane tragedy but also the amazing conquest of a cross-America bicycle trip. Bill Hancock gives his heart and soul to a spirit-cleansing ride as well as getting the support of his wonderful wife, Nicki, daughter-in-law Karen, and the entire immediate family after this gut-wrenching loss. Bill's honesty and coping with the struggles of Will's loss and the hazards of trekking from California to Georgia are absolutely inspiring and refreshing. This book is a `must read' for anyone dealing with the loss of a loved one, a great personal challenge or even the casual reader who wants to get a great spiritual lift from a wonderful volume.

Heart of America -- Heart of a Man

After the death of his son in a highly-publicized plane crash,Bill Hancock flees the blue moth of sadness in a bike ride across America. He talks with ordinary people in their workday worlds and his account of them becomes a lyric love song to America. He gives an inside glimpse into the world of college sports and an intimate glimpse into a loving family where sports and music compete. His witty travel journal is also a journal of personal grief and sustaining grace, written with a reporter's clarity and a poet's heart. It is funny, tragic and beautiful.