Meet Hank...
One of my best challenges most recently was to complete my bio on Instagram... in 150 letters. How do I fit "who I am" into a mere 150 letters? Well... here it is...
Bikes. Music. Swimming. Base&Football. UofA Batboy. Tennis. Lancer. Usher. Insurance Agent. Husband. Dad. Wildcat. Bookkeeper. Wildcat. Dad. Teacher. Dad. Husband. Dad. National Board Certified Teacher. Professional Brewer. Bike shop sales/wrench. Ride.
I added a few more letters just because I could - and makes a little more complete - but you get the idea. And - most notably... the first, and last are not separated into segments like careers or life's chapters... they are a beginning and continued thread where cycling has been interwoven through my life.
I can relive that moment - when "Mr. Stephen" yelled ahead to me that I was not riding on my training wheels. We went back to my house, took them off... and I never looked back. Two wheels captured my soul.
A bike has been with me through all phases of my life - whether the freedom to go to a friends' house on my own, ride to school or work (I didn't think to call it "commute" back then), preferred mode of exercise, or just ride. It has become my therapy... I guess it always has been.
But there is another picture - the world that surrounds each an every one of us. We choose what role we will play in it... or does it choose for us?
It is far too easy to become wrapped up - crossing the event horizon into the black hole that makes us simply a robot. We get drawn into it. We are overfed with stimuli, and fueled by over processing. We are bombarded with polar-divisive rhetoric that turns friend and neighbor against each other. We think nothing of typing a post to blast someone we don't even know - or worse yet, type things that we would never say to a friend's face. Life is all a game now - each aspect about winning or losing. Life becomes a competition. Get the most. Get the best. Win. Win. Win... at all cost. What ever happened to being satisfied with "enough"?
This is where I have found the best use for the bicycle... to escape. To live in the moment. To connect with people on a different plane - away from the hustle and bustle of work and data bombardment.
So - that brings me to the purpose for this blog site - I can only save one world... mine. I can become the change I want to see. This blog page becomes an insomniatic escape to all things bicycling, to congregate past memories and adventures, share new ones, and hopefully in doing so can provide inspiration or solace to someone else.
So close your eyes... that moment you feel at one with your machine. It is dialed in. Whether in the middle of a century ride, your workout sprint, or flowing singletrack... feel the wind through your hair... the faintest sound of your chain interacting with cog and sprocket underlying the roll of your tires on the ground... all is right... right where two wheels carry the soul.
Thank you for sharing in my experiences...
Hank
