The bike will be the last thing. I have done nothing but endeavor for the past good many years and I have found love of technical trade by way of being a bicycle repairman. Permanently in vocation of bicycles. It is now better than ever.
My travails(sic) have taken me from my Southwestern love to a place so much more vortex than Sedona it is a black hole; Southeastern Alaska. I cannot believe what I found there. I can’t believe I endured it, and as much as I will miss it for the rest of my life, I am so realized and grateful to have left. So many good people who I will never see again but who will always be in my heart. And I will not be there. Alaska taught me the list valuable lessons of my life. And it never faded. I needed to get back to bike and I needed to recover to the Southwest for the basis of doing so. My teeth were cut, and I was fully reconciled.
The riding in Alaska became the fundamental downfall..Yes there are tons of options and indeed I explored many, but it wasn’t jagged quartz chunk or baby heads. There were no high altitude jacks. No pokey things other than devil’s club. There were grizzlies, and deathly ocean waters, and subarctic alpine realms that I saw in deep winter that few others will ever be able to comprehend. Ice skating on ponds upside 3000 foot mountain ranges. The surroundings were most captivating but the trails, aside from hiking routes, never sustained my interests. Although there were moments of trail riding perfection, I was never able to discover any long term stoke after 3 years. I blame the context of survival. It became explicit to me what survival means. Alaska provides survival and you best be a millionaire or better to fool yourself you deserve to be there. Leave it all to the bears is my preference. There was too much poverty, sloth and isolation to be disinterested. Hiking was simply more survivable and most social so it became the valid option. If you never fill a boot in muskeg you have not seen the limits of my interest in riding environments. But there was some select shit. Here is Stephen ripping the bike park.
And so I did leave in the most remarkable way. I stood up for my sanity for one last time; knew what wanted, and what I had to do, and I walked away from every problem I ever had about myself. Unfortunately my Cassiar dream were partially sabotaged by my actions.
I ended up leaving Alaska by ferrying my Jeep and my limited amassment of clutter to skag way and driving out via the Cassiar. This was an action in contradiction to riding out with only the things I could carry on my bike. My bike was a Trek Farley with a 29+ wheel set. I am sorry.
The drive took 3 weeks. I walked out of the forest for 12 miles for the part in Squamish. Bought a hacksaw; walked back into the forest, and cut my Jeep out of a ditch.
I returned home. My home is the greater Southwest region. I’m comfortable with that. My primary goal in life is STILL shop life. I will die belabouring for it I believe that after my formative years among bikes as a grom, until now I have re-hardwired myself to actually enjoy every torque of a bike repair or build process in my power stand, if not fiend for it or complete exhaustion in some way.
A, or maybe one mantra that keeps coming back is:
“Living the dream is never easy.”
BGR dropped that one in my a long time ago. I don’t know where he got it. I always though he was a wise and incredible human. An old soul. And there was always misunderstood entanglement from us becoming beyond reliable friends. We had clamored out the longest rides of dirt before bikepacking was a seminar.
but the tone rings true. You’ve got to fight for your right to party and that effort will fuck you up harder than most any other thing. But no matter the grievance to be one of you, if you decide to breath you decide that good work is the requisite to breath. And I guess the good work of it is not so much in your mind as it is that you should convince yourself, in the hatd way of not, that the work you are required to do as a law if living in an entropic cascade, is what survival really becomes about. I chose bike. What did you cose? Harder shit, I am sure if it.
My forecast is huge and full of bike. Aside from the akwardity cast among my coworker friends, I wish and am willing to die upon it. When I relive my past and the consistency of my endeavors, this becomes rote. The proclamation still feels the best.
i have found one more opportunity and I will let no person down.