sometimes you have to stop and smell the chamois butter


Wednesday, December 29, 2010

And so it begins

I have spent the better part of my life enamored with the bicycle.  In my younger years, it was more of a boyhood crush, but as I grew older it turned into a full blown love affair.  I got my first job just to buy a bicycle.  My friends were busy trying to get the car keys from their parents while I was dishing out chicken at a fast food restaurant, trying to earn enough money for a 1984 Trek 660.  Every paycheck was devoted to freeing that beautiful red machine from the confines of the bike shop.  My mom would drive me straight from the chicken joint to the bank, and then to Bicycle World, where I would ecstatically give them my weeks earnings. 
Recently I was back east visiting my folks.   Dad had put aside some boxes of random things that I apparently could not part with.   I began to go through the boxes, time capsules comprised mostly of  trash that just needed to go away.  But in one of those boxes I found the receipt for the Trek, paid in full on May 2, 1985.  Take in mind that I would have no idea where to begin looking for my High School diploma or my English degree.   I'm sure my mom knows, but in reality, I don't really care.  That receipt means more to me than possibly any other document I own.  It chronicles the beginning of my 25 years in the bicycle industry.  In some ways it's a representation of when my life really began.  Little did I know,  but those two wheels set everything in motion for how my life would unfold.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

testing...check 1,2

So I've convinced myself that I have something to say, and consequently started this blog.  Maybe it's just to see my words go somewhere other than just spewing out of my mouth.  Will anyone listen?  Maybe so, maybe no.  If I scream in my head, can anyone tell I'm screaming.  Hopefully not!
 At the moment, I have more than enough free time on my hands.  Most of it spent either riding bikes or working on bikes or reading about bikes or just plain thinking about bikes.  I think you get the idea. 
So I decided to take my obsession with bikes and pair it with my unused english major--and get blahgging.