Blogging Through It

 Public Service Announcement: I am entering the final days of this series of posts. May 11th, 2025 will mark the start of my 20th year of blogging here on "Guitar Ted Productions". There will be a special post for this upcoming, but for now, please enjoy another look back at this topic from the days gone by on G-Ted Productions.

 May was always a time when I would give about a week-long Trans Iowa recap while behind the scenes I was recovering from a physical and emotional beat-down. I know it is perhaps hard for anyone to understand, but this was always a very difficult month starting out after a Trans Iowa.

Usually by the time the whole story of the latest Trans Iowa had been posted I was back on the bicycle in some form. But working at a bicycle shop gave no quarter at this time of the year. So, I tried to ignore all that and just ride, blogging through all of that, and do review work which I'd write about as well.

Then Trans Iowa ended and I felt a big hole in my life and in my writing staring me down. Writing the "Trans Iowa Stories" series helped somewhat. But then we had the pandemic and well..... That was something, wasn't it?

Image courtesy of Twin Six

I don't think I've ever blogged through something like the pandemic before it happened and I probably never will again. Those were strange days and while it was happening I did not know what I might end up writing about.

However; it seemed I had all kinds of things to do in terms of writing, and review opportunities sprang up when I figured there would be an end to that for a while considering all the shortages in the industry.

I even bought a new frame and fork. Well, to be honest, lots of people were doing the same thing. But I managed to get this Twin Six Standard Rando v2 just early enough that I was able to buy enough parts for it, pinch others in my stash for the build, and get it up and running as a single speed.

In a twist of irony, my employer at the time, Andy, was buying one of these bikes as well, and was planning a single speed set up. I, on the other hand, was planning a geared set up using SRAM Rival parts. Well, after one thing and then another, we changed our minds. We ended up buying parts from each other and swapping build ideas. Andy did a geared set up while I went single speed.

Once the Stormchaser single speed review bike went back to Salsa Cycles in late Spring, I had dreams of getting a dedicated gravel single speed. While the Rando can only handle maybe 45mm tires on the right rims, it still turned out to be a really nice single speed. The bike figured heavily in my riding then until later in the Summer when I moved almost exclusively to my Noble Bikes GX5. And that due to my "quest" to finish out riding every gravel road and dirt road in Black Hawk County, which I managed to do.

So, May turned out to be a month of hope and excitement in 2020, all in the face of uncertain times.