Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Ideas Are A Dangerous Thing

There was this one time in Stevens Point when.....
Many moons ago I did three loaded, self-supported tours over the course of three years time. I wrote about my experiences in a series I did on this blog back in 2008 called "Touring Tuesdays". If you want to search those posts, just enter "Touring Tuesdays" into the little search box in the upper left side of the header and hit go. You'll find enough to waste a few hours of time reading.

Well, anyway, I have always had in my mind that this was something I might do again. It is always one of those half-hearted thoughts though. The sort you hold in a romantic light and know that you really probably will not do again, because of a million excuses you come up with against it. Practical, responsible thoughts arise, and that about does it for any chance of self-supported touring until the fit takes me some other time months down the road. And then there are the feelings that, well.....been there, done that, and I'd never recreate the same situations or feelings I have experienced in the past anyway. Why beat my self up trying to relive the past?

There are two new guys I work with at the shop now: Andy and Leif. These two guys are really pretty good fellows, although they probably couldn't be more different. Both brought together in a bicycle shop through their love of cycling, they are young, energetic, and give each other grief like a pair of wedded folks that have been at each other for 40 years. It's really pretty funny. Anyway, I cannot remember just how it happened that the subject of touring came up, and the banter about a "name for the tour" was going on between Andy and Leif. What they didn't know was I had lived this scene 21 years ago in a bike shop that no longer exists. So, having had experience with "naming" tours, I suggested one, and Leif threw his arms up in the air in delight and said "we're going to do this!", and immediately asked when. Andy was excited as well, and then they both looked at me and asked me what, where, when, and how........

So, anyway, this crazy idea has been hatched, and maybe, if things all fall into place, we're going to tour up to Minneapolis and back in October. It is going to be called the "M.I.N.T S. Tour", (if you go, we'll tell you what that means), and we're going to do this self-supported on gravel roads, mostly. Maybe. We'll see how things play out. Ideas......they can be a dangerous thing.

Stay tuned......

No comments: