So today’s June 11th. Do you know what that means? Well, nothing.
Okay, fine, not nothing; it’s actor Shia LaBeouf’s birthday. And it could even be your birthday too, for all I know, in which case, happy birthday!
Anyway, yeah, so today’s June 11th, which, as we established, doesn’t really mean anything. And tomorrow is June 12th, which also doesn’t mean anything. (Apart from the fact that it’s Helsinki Day in Finland, which is always a good time.) But Saturday, June 13th, does mean something, because it’s the 13th anniversary of this very blog:
Yes, I call my blog Brian. Also, 13 is the lace anniversary, so you can only imagine the steamy gifts we’ve exchanged.
The reason I’m mentioning this now is threefold: 1) The 13th is a Saturday; B) I’ll probably forget tomorrow; and III) I’m not around next week and probably won’t be hearing much from me during that time. So that leaves today.
Things were a lot different back when I started my blog. For example, in those days people wore their brake pads on their feet:
Rapha was the only company that would sell you a cycling jersey that didn’t have either a pro team name or else pictures of your internal organs on it for some reason:
And of course even when people got sick over the winter, society continued to function.
Oh well, two steps forward, a gazillion steps back.
Though it all, I continued to type words of varying degrees of irrelevance and launch them into the vast digital slop bucket that is the World Wide Internet. And while I can’t say I accomplished all that much over the past 13 years (apart from publishing a bunch of books, having a family, and making significant contributions to the lexicon of cycling), I can at least say that I am deeply modest. Also, I deserve a little credit for keeping a blog alive for 13 freaking years, despite the fact that in 2020 the blog as a medium is almost completely irrelevant.
Ah yes, I’m a skinny-tired road bike in a gravel bike world. But maybe if I stick around long enough people will discover me again.
Hey, it worked for 650b wheels…
Thanks very much for reading. It’s a beautiful world out there–I’d give it at least a 3.1 on the People For Bikes scale. Enjoy it!