Minus Ten Review- 42

A 2007 Fisher Paragon with an example of the first Fox 29'er fork made

Ten years ago on the blog I made a very simple, honest request and posted the following title to kick it off: "Mid-West 29"er Get Together In '07?"

Ya know how sometimes you look back at how you did some things and wished that you had followed your original intuitions? Or have you ever felt like you didn't stick to your guns and the vision got swooped up by others that didn't "get it" and everything went swirling down the proverbial toilet?

Yeah......

That's what happened to that idea I proposed back in 2006. I let others twist my original ideas, take them, and eventually make it so that the goals were impossible and I didn't put my foot down and say "no". I should have.

In the end, what was supposed to just be a fun, casual get together became a failed marketing ploy and got me into some hot water with some folks. I am as much to blame as anyone, because I let go of the reins and trusted others that shouldn't have been let in. That ended up deep sixing what became known as "The Big Wheeled Ballyhoo". I tried to redeem the thing in '09, but an early Winter storm and a family emergency balled up things.

 I got it. It was not meant to be.

I learned a lot though, and those lessons helped me to keep something else I was involved in on track, and helped me to get out of some things that were not where I wanted to go with grace and my dignity intact. Still, that one blog post in '06 really set a ball of crap rolling down hill that ended up becoming kind of a train wreck. There were good things, for sure. Good times, adventures, and relationships that were made and some maintained right up until today. Some cool 29"er stuff was shown and shared, like the first commercially available Fox 29"er forks. It was fun, but it wasn't what I would have done had I stuck to my guns.