New Beginnings on Two Wheels

Hi Mike,
You asked for comments, and I hope you'll take what I have to say with the attitude that it is meant to help. The title is good, and you follow through in the essay. You start out in the NY race and bring us back there in the concluding paragraphs, coming full circle which is good. The memories are fine, too, but we switch to your memories from the present awfully fast. You put the asterisks in a line to show that, but I think you need a segue of some sort. A simple sentence to bring us from present to the past. Otherwise, it's a bit jarring.

One grammatical error I noted was in the paragraph about Columbus. You say "...know one..." and it should be "...no one..."

Also I noted that you repeated saying the village or small village etc where I grew up. Once is fine, but try to use other descriptions instead of repeating. If said too often, it gets tiresome for the reader.

I could see places where sentence structure could be redone, but that's me being the 'critiquer'

I liked the use of sound in the beginning. Use of sensory details brings the scene alive for the reader. Use sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste whenever possible.

I'd better quit. I bet you never dreamed you get a comment of this length. :) Good Luck in selling this one.
Nancy

I'm not upset at all, Nancy. This was an excellent critique and I appreciate it.
As writers, we have to have a tough skin.
I can't believe my local writing group,who I
met with tonight, and even myself missed the "Know" error.

Grrrr

How could I have missed that?

I am ready to submit tomorrow. Hopefully
I can make a sale. They pay pretty well.
Their pay range is from 30 to 45 cents a
word. That's anywhere from $347 to $520 for this piece.

Again, thank you for a great critique

Mike