This isn’t about one bike ride. Instead, it’s a way I’ve found to organize my To Be Ridden wish list (a riff off To Be Read, for all you bookworms).
With a bingo sheet.
I created this using Canva (freemium design software) and a bingo template I found there. No, there’s not one for bicycling, but the templates are easily customizable, both with text and images.
The one above, for example, is one I created for a friend using this free green self-esteem bingo template. Aside from the grid and the green dots and squiggles, nothing is still the same!
I added the blue bikes (swiped from a random template with the bicycle), changed the color of one of the green squiggles to match … and made every block tied to a bike ride. OK, there’s a bike museum in there too.
What you put in there is really up to you and your wish list.
I came up with the idea last year as I was researching what to see and do in Tucson for an upcoming bike ride and more (trip report here).
Then I created one for 2025 travel, and another one as a retirement gift.
Yeah, a lot of decluttering in that last one.
When I downloaded (“shared”) each, I saved it as a png file rather than the video option it came as. Then I printed it (black and white will do) and would come across it every so often, a good reminder of where I could go.
How do you win? By doing a row’s worth of items! Or you can say the goal is to do them all, like my friend the super-achiever.
Does it work? Well, it was the nudge to go to the Hudson Valley/Catskills for a couple of days and bike the Harlem Valley Rail Trail on one of those days. And a reminder to design a bike ride to hit those two bakeries. It even got me camping (never mind that the bike ride idea was an epic fail).
But did we win? Not by my friend’s standards — but we did hit 15 of the 24 items in Arizona Bingo. We’ve also called out Bingo! a few times with the others. And you’re in charge, so you can make the mix in each row as hard or as easy as you like.
Scarily, perhaps, I already have three bingo cards in the works for 2026: one for things to do within roughly an hour of my house, another one for all of Pennsylvania and a third that is for travel further afield.
Will I actually bike from Edinburg to London? London to Paris? I know it will be hard to hit every square in a row of this travel bingo card, but at least there will be no shortage of adventure.
Exploring by bicycle 