[ad_1]
As someone who was once the Internet’s foremost chronicler of the minimalism movement, I likely understand better than anybody the feeling of freedom that comes with simplifying your life. So with the ‘Noner now re-homed, it occurred to me that I should keep the momentum going and send another bike packing too. But which?
Well, even without the ‘Noner I’ve got more road bikes than I need at the moment, and so I figured it was finally time to return the LeMond to Classic Cycle. But first, I figured I’d take it for a quick farewell ride:
It’s like getting dressed up to go to a fancy restaurant. Yes, the food’s fantastic, but you keep checking to make sure you didn’t get any sauce on your crisp white shirt. During the height of the fixie craze, this sort of fussiness resulted in the top tube pad phenomenon.
Which is like going to a fancy restaurant and sticking your napkin in your collar.
Now, consider the wisdom of the Buddhists.
They understand that suffering is the root of desire. You want the nice bike, and that hurts. You think getting the bike will make everything all better. But then you get the nice bike, but it still hurts because now you’re worrying about it instead of enjoying it. That’s why the Dalai Lama still rides an old fixie conversion with flop-and-chops, even though those Himalayan roads would be the perfect excuse for him to buy the newest and latest gravel bike as well as lots of gear from Rene Herse.
Imagine caring about so many ridiculous things simultaneously–and I say this as a bike dork! That Tweet is an exquisite concerto of smugness. Incidentally, minimalists and advocates have a lot in common. For example, as I noted in the aforelinked post, minimalists use all the same crap the rest of us do, but they like to brag about how they don’t own it because it technically belongs to their domestic partner.
