Let's work at the local bicycle shop!

This post was originally workshopped on my Instagram and in the Fifty+ Years Old forum at mtbr.com.

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Old-man. Mouthbreather.

I never thought of myself as old. 

Until recently. 

The harsh reality of being me in this moment is that I’m at least 30, and in several cases 40 years older than everyone I work with at the bike shop (except for my good friend, Ken, who owns the place and has a couple years on me). Despite this constant reminder of my ever increasing age, it is, nonetheless, my privilege to toil alongside all of these amazing young people selling this thing (selling an experience, really) that we all passionately, even obsessively love. 

But this work, like all work, is hard work. "That's why they call it Work," my hard-working baby brother is fond of saying.  Retail at the sales-floor level, no matter what you're selling, is super tough and any amount of time spent working on the (concrete) floor during the summer season at Absolute Bikes Flagstaff is guaranteed to be a marathon endeavor. Not only is there a lot to know about each make and model of bike we sell, and an obtuse and thoroughly unintuitive point-of-sale system to master, there's also the simple fact that every customer who comes in through the front door brings with them a unique set of challenges due to their distinct personal peculiarities and predilictions.  

Fortunately, in general, I really enjoy most of our customers, especially the oddballs and the unusuals, but also the normies and the squares (can't spin, still loves to ride), the unsung heroes (state champion, sport class, 1997, didn't I tell you?), the OCDs (do you guys have a scale?), the 420s (wait... what?), the tragically overtrained (but soooo tan), the mouthbreathers (coach says I need to focus on my breathing), and even the lady who, after trying on like 17 pairs of expensive sunglasses, handed the last one back to me and said, "Thanks, but I just can't have nice sunglasses anymore; I think the monkey's watching me..."

My fondness for keeping company with the quirky and unique is likely because I spent my whole professional career working in elementary schools... All kids are endearingly weird. And all our customers are just grown-up kids.

There's a syllogism lurking in there somewhere. 

On the other hand, my old-man feet, well, they are paying a heavy price. 

Today was my first morning on a bike in the woods in the last nine or ten days. Not because I didn’t have time to ride, but because I didn’t have the feet to. See, we’re short-handed by at least one, maybe two sales folks at the moment, so I’ve been picking up extra shifts to make sure the sales floor is fully staffed as we quickly ramp into our busy season. 

 

This afternoon will be the ninth day in a row for me on sales floor. 

 

Don't get me wrong. I am not complaining!  I’m actually super stoked to be back at work at the shop. Last month was my one-year anniversary (and some 30 years since my very first shift back in 1995) working at Absolute Bikes Flagstaff. 

It’s just that, back when I was a kid in my 20s and 30s, working on the sales floor on my feet all day, it never occurred to me that I would one day become an old man, still working on the sales floor on my feet all day, and that, in doing so, the experience now would be oh-so radically different when compared to the experience back-then. 

My feet huuuurt.  A lot.  Doesn't matter if I've been wearing Blunds, or Vans, or Chacos all day.  I can barely walk at the end of most shifts.

 

And this epiphany, well, it got me to thinking… I guess this means I’m officially old.

‘Tis a bitter pill to swallow, that one, if I’m being honest. 

It really is.

Just about a bike: Surly Moonlander

Click any image to embiggen

This is my Surly Moonlander. 

It is a first generation Moonlander, which Surly debuted in 2011, and discontinued in 2016.  This bike should not be confused in any way with Surly's new freaky-deaky ground-up redesigned 2025 Moonlander; they are two completely different bikes.

Actually, technically, this bike is not really mine.  It's a loaner from a good friend who moved away. He asked me, while I was helping him load the last of his family's stuff into their moving-truck, if I would be willing to keep it in my garage, on stand-by, for him to ride whenever he came back to town to visit.

Like I said, he's a good friend, so of course I agreed. Especially after he told me it would be fine with him if I rode it around whenever I cared to. 

In the years that it's been housed here at my place, of course, I have.  Many, many times.

Meantime, my friend, well, I'm happy to say he has been back to visit several times. 

Nonetheless, despite his repeated visits, he's ridden the bike just once... So...

Let's get a new tattoo!

It has long been said regarding semantics that “the word is not the thing,” the implication being that all language, both text and speech, can only attempt to represent ideas and feelings but cannot actually be the Real thoughts or sensations it describes.

In December 1996 I sat down to get my first tattoo, three small Hebrew letters (חֶסֶד = lovingkindness) on the ring finger of my left hand. It took the artist about five minutes to install it and cost me a grand total of $45, which I paid in cash.  I used the word, chesed (pronounced KHES-ed), as a framework for a part of my vows a few days later.  

And I meant it.  I know I was an imperfect partner at times.  But I really did try to live every implication of the word, as well as the indelibility of the deed, each day of my 28-year marriage.

Selected posts now streaming!

** selected posts now streaming **

I was a volunteer reader for Sunsounds of Arizona for several years. It was a favorite amongst my many unpaid retired-guy "gig" jobs. I was proud to be tasked with reading the Arizona Capitol Times (a non-partisan, weekly newspaper covering state politics and government) for their visually challenged listeners on a weekly basis. Sadly, administrative shake-ups within the organization last year made it untenable for me to continue to provide audio content to them.

As a classroom teacher for 20 years, I read aloud to my students each day, commonly following lunch recess, as a way to decompress and refocus our brains after the midday outdoor activity time.

Let's pretend that everything is fine.

[audio]

If ever I had an ego, it ceased-to-be in 2025, along with any inherent sense of pride in my accomplishments I might have once possessed.

But maybe what I'm actually talking about is self-esteem. Or could I be talking about my sense of self-worth?  I don't know. Took my last psychology class half-a-lifetime ago, so I'm not really sure. Also, I haven't seen my therapist in a while (It's time; going to see her on Tuesday). Thus, for today, I'm doing my own stunts when it comes to dredging the definitions and depths of these terms.

Holidays and bitter anniversaries have me feeling pretty shitty these days. Devastated. Sad. Unlovable. Humiliated. Lonely. Unwanted. Without value. Aimless. Why?  My wife left me.  A year ago.  Told me she didn't love me any more.  Moved out of our house.  Walked away from me, our home, our entire extended family, all of our pets, and every single one of our family photos, to say nothing of the many happy memories and moments contained therein. 

Ghosted. All of it.

Let's redecorate the living room!

It was just about a year ago when my now ex-wife revealed the first of many reasons she had for needing to leave me (ultimately there were more than 20; I kept a list). In October 2024, about two weeks before she actually got around to telling me that she didn't love me anymore and was moving out, she told me that it was deeply upsetting to her that “everywhere I look around here, I just see your shit. Especially the garage!  Oh my god, you have completely taken over the garage!"  

True, I'll admit, but only to a point.  Lots of bikes and skis, workbenches and tools out there.  Hard to be a bike rider without owning a few bikes, or a skier without a quiver of skis...

Let's get a divorce.

Divorce is a world of suck best avoided. 

Divorce is a towering rogue wave poised ready to rend asunder half a lifetime's promises, hopes, and dreams.

Divorce is a muddled muttered mantra of repeated regret.  

Divorce is a long dark road in the middle of nowhere, inevitably heading somewhere, albeit only god-knows-where. 

Divorce is an explosion of great magnitude, sufficient to result in the utter destruction of all familiar things, leaving only charred shattered remnants and thoroughly annihilated particles in its aftermath.

Divorce is unabated disquiet.

Divorce is interminable disbelief.

Divorce is an unnatural disaster.