Marc Kitteringham
I've been thinking a lot lately.
I've been a part of the bike world for the better part of three years. I started out just as a rider and bike commuter. I rode a road bike through the fall and moved on to a mountain bike when the snow fell. A few months later I got a job at a bike shop in sales. By the end of the summer I had moved on to be a mechanic and started this website. I worked as a mechanic through the winter, building bikes and doing maintenance on people's winter rides. I was stoked on how many people actually rode their bikes through the hellish winter in Edmonton. As the weather started to change, I began thinking about moving on to a more media-related job. I took a big breath and packed up to move to Victoria where I had a new job working for the 24 Hours of Adrenalin mountain bike race and as a mechanic at a bike shop here in Victoria. After moving again back to my old city, working as a bike builder, losing that job, getting a degree in journalism and moving back to Victoria, I had a very tumultuous year. Finally I am on the other end of it, starting to look into my future to see what is in store.
So I've decided to re-focus.
I am going to take a long look at what biking means to me. I want to explore why I got into it, why I stayed there and what the future holds for me. I think that riding a bike is a very political act, it gives people the means to connect with their communities, and it is an act in sustainability, both of the planet and of the person.
I've been focused a lot on the gear that makes the bike world tick. Without it, there wouldn't be much of a bike world. In the process of focusing on that, though, I've lost sight of what I started this site for. This is not a place for race stats, new bikes and gear reviews. There are people out there who are way more qualified and talented if you're looking for that sort of thing. This is more of an exploration of the weird dirtbaggy side of cycling and how that matters in the whole scheme of things.
That is what I am going to look at going forward.
After all, I am a dirtbag.