If you're wondering what to get me, according to Hallmark 10 years is either aluminum or diamonds:
So if you want to go modern, might I suggest a jewel-encrusted Cipollini:
Cipollini RB1K Luxury Edition from Mcipollini on Vimeo.
Or, if you're the traditional sort, how about a used Jamis?
I'm cool with either--or both!
Most years I forget my Blog-A-Versary, or my Blogular Birthday, or my Blog-Mitzvah, or whatever you want to call it, but when I realized I was closing in on a decade I decided this year would be different. Indeed, I flirted will all sorts of celebratory ideas, including but not limited to:
- Leading a great bike ride
- Having a big party
- Relaunching the whole operation on a fancy new platform complete with smarphone app
- Quitting the whole goddamn shitshow once and for all
Alas, when it came right down to it, the unfortunate fact is that I couldn't get it together to do any of these things. In fact, I ended up forgetting my e-decennial just like I'd forgotten the others before it, because the goddamn thing was yesterday. And now it's too late.
Oh, get over it, mutt.
Still, it's only natural that I'd forget my big day, because at this point in my life I'm very busy. For one thing, I'm one half of a New York City power couple. (I'm the powerless half, every power couple needs one.) For another, I'm the father of two (2) human children (it used to be seventeen (17) but I donated fifteen (15) of them to Recycle-A-Bicycle) and I must prepare them for life in a dystopian future. (I've got them on a rigorous program of martial arts and computer coding.) And then there are the community board meetings, and the public appearances, and all those great shows on Netflix, and before you know it there's hardly even time for a sub-sub-epic ride in suburbia let alone a lavishly self-indulgent birthday celebration:
Yes, these days an hour or two on the trails behind the shopping mall on what the dropper post weenies would consider an "entry level" mountain bike is pretty much as "epic" as it gets for me--and even then I usually meet the family at the mall afterwards and we do our grocery shopping at Whole Foods.
Yeah, that's right, we shop at Whole Foods. Then we fly back to the Bronx on our private jet:
Sometimes while we're waiting on the tarmac we hail like 15 Ubers and when they show up we point and laugh at them as we take off.
Anyway, all of this is to say that while I reserve to right to engage in some sort of retrospective, commemorative event, or crass merchandise offering at some point during my tenth year, it ain't gonna happen today.
There is one thing I'd like to share with you though before I sign off for the day:
10 years ago I was a cycling rube, a New York City Fred who frittered away his carefree pre-child-rearing years by waking up early to ride around in circles with other Freds. Then I started a blog so I could make fun of fixies. In so doing I had the tremendously good fortune to be embraced by the cycling community and to experience all sorts of things I never would have otherwise: going on a book tour; riding L'Eroica; and falling headlong into my own urine, just to name a few. I owe this all to the people too numerous to mention who have reached out to me over the years, as well as anybody who's ever read my blog, or my books, or any of the other stuff I've scribbled, and it's quite humbling to consider that if I hadn't started this thing I'd still be riding around in circles both literally and figuratively.
So thank you, and feel free to knock off early today and go for a ride.
You deserve it.
--Wildcat Rock Machine
from Bike Snob NYC http://ift.tt/2tmRBtu
No comments:
Post a Comment