This is who we are; friends, riders, family. Though many of us will never have the opportunity to ride together, we know that as we descend, every rider is with us, leaving their mark in the dirt behind us.
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Reflections
I like pedaling. I like climbing. I like long climbs. I even like long technical lung-busting climbs.
And then I moved to the Pacific Northwest. For years prior I was a XC singlespeed guy ... long rides through the desert, undulating terrain, and the only consistent verticality seemed to be when going up. In other words, climbing was simply part of it. That was it. End of story.
We spend the winter pining for long dry summer days where we can ride late into the evening and log endless hours on the trail. Sure, we may complain about blown out trails and thick dust, but we love basking in the sun. This is especially true for those of us here in the Pacific Northwest where at times the sun seems like it is merely stuff of legends or a mythical creature like bigfoot or loch ness monster because it is almost never seen. We even use hashtags like #sunsoutgunsout as we revel in the glow of that giant orb in the sky that our planet hurtles around.
The coffee scene has gone through a lot of twists, turns, and changes over the millennia. Particularly over the last 75 years have we seen successive "waves" of changes ... from large commercial brands like Folgers and Maxwell House (first wave) to Starbucks, Seattle's Best, and Peets (second wave) to now the explosion of third wave or specialty roasters with early pioneers in the mid to late 90s like Stumptown, Counter Culture, and Intelligentsia. So what is the third wave? According to Scott Rao the third wave "now typically refers to companies favoring lighter roasts and brewed-to-order coffee made by hipsters" (The Coffee Roaster's Companion, 11).
Riders. That is who we are. We could argue and say that we are defined by our particular riding disciplines, but when it all comes down to it, we share the same desire for dirt. So what is so special about two wheels and a set of handlebars? Why do we crave for just a few hours a day on some short singletrack? Why do we fantasize about burly rock gardens instead of planting our own? There has got to be something more going on here.
Sleeping outdoors is fun whether car camping, bikepacking, or backpacking. But let's be honest. When you really think about it, "camping" is simply reducing our quality of life for a night or two. We move from sleeping in comfortable beds in climate-controlled rooms to sleeping on thin sleeping pads hoping we removed the bigger rocks underneath. And then there are bugs and the night was colder than we had anticipated. When we wake up in the morning (usually earlier than we normally do) the first thing that comes to mind is ... coffee.
