Tomorrow is a very special day, and not just because it’s Worldwide Knit In Public Day:
Though that is pretty DARN important.
No, what makes tomorrow truly important is that it is the Nineteenth Anniversary of This Blog, which I started over here way back on June 13th, 2007.
Every year I think to myself I should do something special to observe this monumental occasion, and every year I completely fail to do so. In fact, most years I forget about it altogether until weeks or months later, so in that respect at least I’ve exceeded my own expectations by remembering the day before. Plus, 19 is not really a significant anniversary year; 20 is the big one. In fact, in Internet years, it’s pretty much the equivalent of America’s 250th birthday:
So that means I now have exactly one year to do…something.
Of course if I had any dignity I’d have quit this blog already, but now that I’ve come this far it seems like I have no choice but to at least see things through for one more year, because stopping now would be like leaving Unbound XL at mile 349–and if you’re unfamiliar with Unbound XL, it’s basically a really long walk broken up by intermittent periods of cycling:
I sure hope they were wearing their gravel running shoes!
The two-part answer to that two-part question is: “Like all gravel products it’s just a regular running shoe with a topographical map pattern on it;” and “Yes.”
By the way, gravel running seems to be anywhere from 5-10 years behind gravel cycling, so it will be at least five more years before they start selling weights to attach to your shoes:
[A reader named Connor alerted me to this. I’d thank you Connor, but now I’m just depressed.]
What do you do when you’ve taken the concept of selling people weight savings as far as you possibly can? You sell all that weight right back to them:
The tuned mass damper (TMD) in question is neither tuned, nor damped – a communication issue that I will explain shortly. It bolts onto a fork via a modified flat mount adapter, and is compatible with 140 mm or 160 mm rotors. It consists of a metal tube that houses a weight suspended between two springs. When your tire encounters a bump, as the fork is displaced upwards the weight inside the tube compresses the lower spring. This compression positions the weight relatively lower within the tube. The weight itself hasn’t necessarily moved, but everything around it has.
This can only mean that the next innovation in the sizzling-hot aero gravel market will be some sort of Surface Area Enhancement Device you attach to the front of the bicycle in order to increase wind resistance:
This “energy delay” device reduces fatigue by creating wind resistance and slowing the rider down considerably. Unfortunately, it’s made of crabon fiber and is therefore very light, so you’ll still need the bolt-on fork weight in order to maximize your retardation* factor.
*[Relax, we’re talking about speed here. Until now gravel riders have only been semi-retarded, but these latest innovations will finally allow them to go “Full Retard.”]
Of course recovery is just as important, so after that big ultra-endurace ride make sure you cool down with a hand-held tuned mass damper:
It’s only a matter of time before the Shake Weight™ makes a comeback, and gravel is just the right lifestyle trend to make that happen.
But let’s get back to me and the occasion of my 19th Blog-A-Versary. I had no idea what I was doing when I started this thing all those years ago, and today I still don’t, which is why it looks like such crap. I also can’t believe that nineteen whole years have passed, and cliché as it may sound it seems like only yesterday to me that I started typing words into the void and incredibly people started reading them. That was an astoundingly happy moment for me, and as it turned out it heralded even happier ones, the happiest being marriage and the arrival of two children. Really, my life started along with this blog, and it’s now become impossible for me to separate the two.
There was a period when blogs were still a thing and I was publishing book after book and writing columns for “Bicycling” and “Outside” when I was a Full-Time Bicycle-Themed Bullshit Artist. But the Internet has changed, the cycling media has changed, and I am an old guy who has not changed at all. The result is a Perfect Storm of Irrelevance, which suits me just fine. Today I’m sustained mostly by my twice-weekly Brooklyn commute and by reader support, and it’s hard to want to pitch ideas to publications and stuff like normal writers do when I can write whatever I want every single day for a loyal readership who actually reads and enjoys it, and who does so for free.
By the way, none of this is to suggest I have some outsized notion of my own importance, but I do reserve the right to feel good about providing people with a few minutes’ worth of amusement during those few moments we all steal throughout the course of a workday in order to look at something stupid.
On this, the occasion of my blog’s anniversary, I also reserve the right to remind you once again just how important your support is–not that I like slipping into PBS pledge drive mode, but that’s just how the Internet works in 2026. As always, if you’re already giving your support, I am deeply grateful. If you’re unable to give it, don’t even worry about it, and if you can give it but don’t want to because you come here just for the hate read that’s perfectly fine too, I spite-read lots of stuff. But the fact remains that in order for me to keep the blog going it has to me moderately remunerative, so here’s that link a third time, and if you’ve been thinking of chipping in on a one-time basis or of creating a DIY monthly subscription or something but haven’t got around to it then I’d politely suggest you get around to it.
And with that I take my leave in order to celebrate this blog’s 19 years of existence by going for a ride, which is how I celebrate pretty much every other occasion. Thank you very much for your readership, your support, and your emails alerting me to bolt-on fork-mounted Shake Weights™. This blog may or may not outlast the gravel trend, but I’m moderately optimistic it’ll at least see its 20th birthday.
Love,
–Tan Tenovo