I cannot, for the life of me, remember how long ago it was that I heard Jeff Tweedy say something in an interview about how making music and then giving it away to the public to listen to automatically ends the creators period of ownership. It stuck with me. For years. It stuck with me and I thought that I very much adhered to the concept. I thought, for so long, that I fully embraced the “what you give away is what you get in return” mentality. I thought did, but I didn’t.
For years I have walked around this earth with something sharp stuck in my side or my neck or my back. This thing, this sword or this knife or this spoon has plagued me and kept me up at night and prevented me from being my best self and has sent me to the far edges of the country looking for peace. Miles and miles and miles I have walked and ridden and driven trying to chase down whatever caused this pain. I wandered and wandered and wandered and I looked and I looked and I looked. I tried everything to make it stop. I even looked inside...or at least I thought I did.
Twenty years ago I made a decision to set my life on an alternate path. As a result, I studied scores of books and bounced thousands of ideas off of all kinds of folks and what I learned was that my ego was the default source to most of my troubles. I learned this and I took it to heart. Additionally, I discovered that, because I had spent so many years taking from others to make myself look and feel good to myself, the best way to make this right was to give back to the community I had taken so much from. It was a simple ask; give freely of myself without intention to receive anything in return. I was promised that I would get everything back tenfold. That promise held up.
What I find most interesting about all of this is that around the same time that this life path was changing, I was circling back to enjoying bicycles again while living headlong in a creative space that had me painting and making things.
Like any good student, I set about to do the work immediately.
For a couple of years I did the work and I gave freely of myself to others benefit. I did it and I kept studying and I kept bouncing ideas off of the people I was learning from...and then one day I stopped. I stopped studying and I stopped sharing ideas. I stopped because I felt like the work I was doing to give back was the whole reason I ever needed a change in the first place. I felt like I had concluded my studies and that my life’s purpose was fulfilled.
I went this way for almost a decade. On my own in the world and doing what I thought was the best I could for the people I had taken so much from years before. As I sit here in this early morning hour I could not have been further from the truth.
When I decided to leave Almanzo after the event in 2014 I felt a giant hole grow inside me. It was a massive vacancy and I had no idea why it was there or how I would fill it. I knew that I was done with the event, but I also I had no idea what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to keep giving of myself because I had wandered so far off from the crowd that got me where I was. I lost track of myself and I had reverted to my old standby...my ego.
You see, I didn’t start Almanzo because I thought my ideas were grand. I started it because I wanted people to be able to enjoy what I’ve enjoyed by bicycle and I wanted it to create a space where people could feel equal. I wanted to make something that felt just like the atmosphere that I had spent so much time in learning and studying and bouncing ideas off of people. I wanted that and I made that and, for all intents and purposes, it was incredible. In all those years I saw so many people accomplish things they never thought they could. I saw unity and camaraderie. I saw strength in individuals and I saw strength in community. I saw a spirit that I had never known. I saw humans being humans and it was beautiful and inspiring.
I poured everything I had into that event. Everything.
I put it ahead of everything else in my life. I put it ahead of my family and my friends. I put it ahead of money and my own well being. I put it at the top of my list of things to give because I knew that if I did that, I couldn’t be doing anything wrong. It was like a protective shield and as long as I wore it I didn’t have to study and I didn’t have to bounce ideas off people because the feedback I was getting from people was that everything I touched was incredible.
And then it stopped. I stopped. I walked away. I walked away because after the huge numbers of participants in 2012 I knew there was something wrong with my approach. I knew that taking bikes from manufacturers and money from retailers was wrong. I knew that being praised was wrong. I knew that it was wrong of me to take these things because that kind of benefit was perpendicular to the reasons I started this whole thing. In 2013 I tried to backpedal my efforts and by the end of the event in 2014 I knew I needed to leave...so I did.
I left the event that year and spent the next five years trying to figure out what was missing. I got divorced. I walked almost all the way away from bikes. I moved across the country. I changed my appearance online. I ran. I hid. I got angry with myself and I created a narrative to protect myself. I created a protective shield that I thought would buy me enough time to figure out what my problem was. I crafted a story that I told myself and it worked...until it didn’t. You see, I walked away from Almanzo because my ego got in the way and I knew it, but that didn’t prompt me to do anything about it. Instead it just gave me more free time to work around it. For five years I told myself that nobody really understood me or my efforts. For five years I quietly admonished the gravel road community because they never adhered to my defining principal of no entry fees. That is bullshit. That is my bullshit. That is my bullshit ego.
Back to the Jeff Tweedy interview. If I make something and I send it out into the world, it’s no longer mine; it becomes property of the state. That was Almanzo. I made it and I gave it away and I have zero regrets about that. What I look backwards on with some shame and guilt is the way that I felt some sense of ownership after I had released it. I let my ego make decisions for me and it kept me from seeing everything that is beautiful about what has grown up around gravel cycling. Today I can say that Almanzo was never about one thing or another. It wasn’t all about free entry and it wasn’t about gravel roads and it wasn’t about bringing life to small, rural communities. It was about giving freely of myself to the people around me without the intent of getting anything in return. It was about abandoning ego and building a space where people could come and connect with each other and find something in themselves that gave them the courage or the motivation to do something bigger with their abilities. It was about all of that and the truth is that all of that still exists in the hundreds of gravel events across the country and across the planet.
I didn’t create gravel and I didn’t create bikes. I didn’t father any kind of bicycle subcategory and I certainly make no claims to have done so. What I did do was make a real hard push to make gravel cycling a thing and I pushed to empower people to make their own events and do what I did. I taught what I had learned and I received the ideas that were bounced off me and gave feedback accordingly. I became the teacher until I could no longer teach.
To all of the people that I silently held grudges against for the last five years, I am sorry. You never did anything wrong. Instead, it was me who was wrong to harbor such feelings. It was me who was wrong to put my ego ahead of the well being of others. It was me who was wrong to put my own self-interest in a position to be dependent on your efforts in what I thought should be my likeness. I made mistakes and I took things for granted. I took advantage of people’s kindheartedness and all the while it was all of you who were out there carrying the message that bikes change lives. You were the ones carrying the torch and doing the work and I was the one sulking in my own depression and remorse and for my behavior and for that I am sorry.
I cannot change the past, nor would I want to. Today, on this final day of 2019, I can write this letter and let everyone know that my love for bicycles has done nothing but get stronger. I can let you know that I have returned to studying. I can let you know that I am finally at peace with myself and my surroundings. I can let you know that I finally understand what it means to love myself for exactly who I am. I can let you know that I understand appreciation as a two way street. I can let you know that I understand the value of self as self relates to others. I can let you know that I understand my ego and what it’s capable of and why it is oh so important to keep it in check.
Most of all I can let you know that I am full again. I am full again and I am very excited to tell you that I cannot wait to see you at some events this year. I will be there riding and smiling and I hope we meet...again or for the first time.