We all have a vision of ourselves, the “kind of person” we are. Artsy, driven, meticulous, grounded. Free-spirited, focused, trustworthy. And if you don’t know what kind of person you are, there’s a whole industry out there that will gladly take your money to help you discover if you are an ENFJ, a ENTP, or just a SHMuK.
One of the stories I tell myself is that I am a minimalist. “I don’t need a lot of things to make me happy” (and “things” is to be said with a slight air of derision/condescension). My shoe collection is unimpressive and knick-knacks are few. I go to the grocery store often and thus my pantry is slim.
Nothing like moving to disabuse you of these notions. All of the above=complete horse shit. I opened my closet to find I was the Imelda Marcos of shoes. My refrigerator contained a sauce for every season—from the last 27 seasons. I have stacks of blurry underwater photos of not-fish from Hawaii circa 1992.
And that’s just the house. I was super proud of myself for recently selling my 2015 Specialized Epic, the one I rode in the 2016 TransAlp race. It had sentimental value. Meaning I never rode it anymore and every seven months or so I would look at it and coo, ‘aw, such a pretty bike…’ then shove it further into a corner and forget about it for the next seven months.
Yeah, I really thought I had lightened my load on the bike front. Then moving day came and there were six bikes eager to load up and head out for the next adventure.
1)—and not in any order cause you can’t ask a parent which child they like best even though everybody knows it’s your sibling even if you don’t have one—Trek Emonda SLR road bike. Sleek, light, fast. 2) Specialized Epic EVO mountain bike. 2023 TransAlp race bike that was embarrassed by its rider but was nice to me anyway. 3) Specialized Turbo Levo E-mountain bike. Nickname “Bruiser.” Heavy, fast, awesome. And if you are anti-e, here’s my spiel: E-bikes are just like gay marriage. Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t have one. Don’t like e-bikes? Don’t ride one. 4) Ibis Ripley mountain bike. Blue, beautiful, bossy. 5) Trek Farley fat bike. A ponderous pontoon-like ride. 6) Specialized Globe thing. Townie. Grocery getter.
The above is not meant to be braggadocios. It is a cry for help. Nobody needs this many bikes. But what is “need”? According to Maslow, it starts with the physiological ones like air, water, food and shelter at the bottom, and progresses neatly through the pyramid to self-actualization at the top. But there’s one thing this smarty-pants forgot. You guessed it—BIKE.
In my view, BIKE belongs just one rung above the bottom of the pile resting neatly atop food/water/shelter where Safety Needs (personal security, employment, resources, health) currently sit. I mean, employment? Really? They listed EMPLOYMENT but not BIKE? If you had a job, how would you have enough time to ride? This Maslow fellow was a real tool.
And speaking of tools, let’s talk about the box(es) of bike-related crap one accumulates through the years. How many derailer hangers for mountain bikes past do you have? How many used tubes that you were gonna patch someday? How many “WTF is this for’s?” I dunno about you, but my cup spilleth over.
After about five rounds of transferring items back and forth from the ‘trash’ to ‘give away’ to ‘keep’ piles, I had a difficult-but-honest conversation with myself. Nobody wants those three rubber rings for indeterminate purpose even if they are “new” and still in that cute little ziplock. And no, you are not going to re-use that cute little ziplock for something else, thereby saving the planet. Let it go. Deep breath. Let it go.
This exercise in lightening my load was cathartic. These possessions were an albatross blocking my road to self-actualization, and once I really dug deep and made some hard decisions, my move became a glide path. Nearly weightless, I arrived in Salida, Colorado with three less tubes, six less rubber rings of indeterminate purpose, and one less derailer hanger. But I kept the cute Ziplocks, cause you never know.
