Here’s the brief sales pitch for why I’m not completely full of crap:
- Worked at a bike shop for 5.5 years, helped countless people buy bikes and ride happily off into the sunset
- Been riding for about 25 years – started as a kiddo and never stopped
- I’ve volunteered at several bike co-ops, helping kids and adults fix up bikes and get riding
- Bicycles have been my main form of transportation for most of my adult life
- I’ve ridden in a lot of places: across America, to work most days in several American cities, up the coast of Taiwan, through the Netherlands, down the streets of Paris and Copenhagen…
- I spent my teens jumping bikes off of tall things and making annoying videos about it (pre-YouTube days, when making a video involved actual magnetic-tape videotapes, Firewire capture cards, and you had to ask someone with a web server to host a video for you)
I don’t believe you, how bout some photo evidence?!?
~2006, Riding little bikes over big-ish jumps
Photo credit: Josh Lawson
2008, East Coast to West Coast in 2 months:
Photo: Parker Stone. If you are a real stickler for evidence, feel free to check out the blog I made, with the caveat that I was young and rash and I might have written some things that are less balanced or reasonable than I would like.
2024: Getting groceries at the nearby store that lacks a bike rack:
