Yesterday morning, I started having regrets. I was in my running gear waiting for my wife to wake up while preparing some breakfast before we were due to head out on a 20km run. After that, we’d get on with our normal weekend odds and ends. I stood there making coffee and I started to regret my 20s.
I regretted the time I wasted watching crap late night TV. I regretted the days I spent working menial jobs for no reason other than social compliance. I regretted sitting in bars drinking myself fat. I regretted wasting the anger in my young body that could have driven it harder.
As I tasted the first sweet sweet drop of coffee on my lips I thought harder about these things and their impact on me now. If I’d not watched so much crap TV I’d have never gelled with two of my best friends from university, one, the brother to my wife. If I’d not spent years working for a pittance in the outdoor industry, I’d have never learnt to dirtbag my way around new places and that sleeping on the floor or sofa is a luxury. If I’d have not drank so much shit beer and got fat I’d have never been able to look back now and realise I’m in a much better place than I ever was. Luckily, I appear to have kept all that anger bottled up and can release it whenever it’s needed.
It’s odd though that at no point during this retrospection do I think regretfully of old bikes I had and how I wasted them. It’s quite simple for me to see that the bikes we ride now – the courses we race on – and the clothes we wear are superior in every way. Sure, they’ve grown off the back of their mistakes but I have no regrets about that progress that has ensued and I’m happy to pay the price that this entails.
Many new riders aren’t. They assume an overinflated market is taking their hard earned pennies, and for some brands this is true, but in reality it’s a market that was under charging learning from it’s mistakes and maturing in line with it’s audience. You’ve only yourselves to blame for lamenting the passing of the bike industries youthful follies.
Beer of the Week:
Gamma Ray – Beaverton Brewery – 5.4% ABV
The concept was to create a juicy tropical beer. A brew you can sit on and drink all day, rammed with juicy malts and huge tropical aromas of mango and grapefruit. Massive additions of whole leaf American hops are added in ever increasing numbers at the end of the boil giving huge hop flavour. The beer is then dry hopped for days, driving the punchy aromas so you can smell it from miles away!
I have no idea why it has taken me so long to add this to the list. A favourite from the first time I tried it way back when. If you find it on keg it’s just as good if not better. It’s got to the stage when the dark days of poor supply were on us, the local social media outlets went wild when it came back into stock. Long may it last.
