This photo is taken in the summer of 2009. The Metadata is irrelevant because everything in the picture precisely dates the time closer than even carbon dating. Not just the floor being a colour other than crushed mud splattered with oil leaks. Or the rafters containing twelve less gliders than are now packed tight on their woody perches. No, the bikes spin a rather telling yarn of then and now.
What’s left? Carol’s Spesh that’s barely moved other than to be swung between brackets as bars got longer and kids bikes bigger. The Cove which came close to being sold, leaving the little DMR as the only other thing older than the dog, scampering – as it does – into a seventh year of service. Which is about the number of times it is ridden in twelve months. Everything else gone; outgrown, unridden, boredom, unsuitable, fads, wrong tyres, who the fuck knows what the logic was?
Not me, but I’ll have a go:
Kona Kilaeua – retro hankering to my first proper MTB. For which the reward should have been a wall hanging. Rather than being thrown to the eBay pirates.
Pace 405 – received absolutely no loving after the ST4 muscled in. I’ve not missed it much as it was a bike I so wanted to like. But didn’t. It isn’t the first.
Spesh Hardrock 16 inch – Way too small for the smallest child. Passed on to someone else’s younger kids.
Spesh Hardrock 24 inch – Passed through two sisters and then out the door. Taught Jess a bit about riding on dirt. Now onto its’ fourth kid and twelfth year of service. I could learn a lesson from that.
Kona Jake the Snake CX Bike – replaced by a proper road bike. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I want another one. Why? Because the one I like is blue. That’s as close to good, hard rationale as we get around here.
So in came the ST4(x2 of course after the first one ate itself), two road bikes, a lovely Spesh Myka for Abi that’s currently Wall-Art and shall soon pass to her sister. Who is rocking her Islabike, and has discovered a real love of singletrack in that year of ownership.
But nothing has changed in over twelve months. Jessie’s was the last bike purchase which was pretty logical considering her increasing size and enthusiasm. And since then, no ins and no outs. Unheard of from a man who’d run through about thirty frames in about the same number of months only a few scant years ago.
Cured? Maybe. Still fancy that new Cross Bike tho 🙂