Once again I'm back, and I don't think I'll really ever stop questioning my motives. After CMWC, a story for another time, I really needed to get away from bikes and everything/one surrounding them. For as long as I can remember my life has revolved around bikes, and maybe not always in a healthy way. It really is an obsession with me, no joke. I crave bikes, I need to be around them, I need to talk about them, I revere them, I wonder why?
Being introspective is not one of my strong points, many people will bear witness to that. My ability for self-analysis is stunted at best, but I feel for some reason I need to analyse this thing I have with bikes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound cool, or elitist; 'I love bikes sooooooooo much more than you'. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love bikes the way many other people do, and I see that in other people all the time, it's beautiful. Now I'm thinking about that guy who got arrested for having sex with a bike... no, it's not like that either.
Is it something about the permanence of bikes? They are solid, tangeable objects that, if broken, can be fixed, usually by myself. They are simple, reliable, unquestioning. There aren't many other facets of my life I can talk about in that way. I've often joked; 'at least my bikes will always be there!'. But am I really joking? Maybe I've found something in them that I know can never be taken away from me by anyone.
I've had a lot of bikes in my time, and it is so difficult to part with them. Right now and old Klein I used to work on is back on the streets being used by someone else, and I worry about it! Am I sick?
Then there's the job. The other part of my life, intrinsically tied to my love of bikes, that seems to define who I am. I've done this job for so long now it's like sleepwalking. I guess any messenger you meet will tell you how like a drug it is, and it's true, once you get on you never want to get off. The highs are so high and the lows, well, you can keep putting the lows off for another day. I've tried other work, many, many times, but the bike keeps calling me back.
I'm not in this job for the kudos, the races, the travelling, or any of the other great things that have happened because of it, what it all boils down to is I'm in it because it allows me to ride my bike, a lot. I hate delivering packages! I don't give a shit what you need delivered. Just tell me where to go and let me ride there, that's all I ask.
My grandmother always hated that I did this job. She wanted me to work in a bank or be a priest. Seriously. She thought that being a 'messenger boy' was beneath me... and I guess some of that sunk in. A couple of years ago I had major crises of confidence in this job. Was I wasting my life? Should I get a real job? I spent a lot of time being embarrased about what I did for a living. But that's what it is, a living. I ride my bike to live. My bike helps me to live. My bike has given me so many opportunities I would never have dreamed of. New and amazing friends, ridiculous street racing, travelling to stay with strangers, organising the goddamned CMWC ferchrissake!!!(another time...), and, of course, in the messenger community, a sense of family that probably holds me together.
'2 wheels spinning in a joyride for the soul'. I don't know who said that, but it's in an old mountain bike video I love and it's always stuck with me. The sentence resonates with meaning for me. Those 2 wheels have raised my soul at times when I thought nothing could. Just me, my bike, and a journey, it doesn't matter where. On road, off-road, uphill, downhill, dodging traffic, laps of the velodrome, when it's just me and the bike I feel like there's a protective shell around me. Nothing can harm me. Sure, I can be knocked down, injured, killed. But nothing can touch ME. All there is, is the hum of the wheels, the rhythm of my legs and the never-ending journey in front of me.
It's been a while since I've written anything here. This doesn't make sense, and in all honesty probably sounds like the ravings of someone who shouldn't be walking the streets, never mind riding a bike on them. But I assure you, whoever you are, I'm not mad, I just need to allow this stuff to spill out from the overflow in my head. Maybe my next post will make a bit more sense, but at least, for now, I've cleared a little bit more room upstairs from some fresh thoughts.
Time to sleep now, perchance...
