Five Vs. Forty

I recently managed to ram two race reports into a single post, mainly driven by laziness and audience exhaustion, but today, very much by design, I’m going to jam two milestones into a single story. Don’t worry, I will still be lazy about it, but this is no ordinary week and as it turns out, anniversary planets have aligned.

First up, Dirty Nomad turns 5 this week, (the blog, not me – But it would be an easy mistake to make) which makes it an abusive snotty nosed little fucker that you feel compelled to slap when it’s parents aren’t looking. Yes, 5 years of missions and experiences all funded through our $0.00 Ad revenue line. I didn’t really expect to still be pecking away at the keyboard like a zombie chicken 5 years later, and while I’ve dropped from 30 posts a month (yes, what the fuck? How did anyone have the time or material?) to a single rant, I’d like to think this blog still represents the niche set of riders & readers it’s intentioned for.

If that wasn’t enough on the milestone front, I also decided to slip into my 4th decade and legitimately make myself a Masters racer, not that it gives me much comfort to be honest based on my current form and the fact that Masters is actually the ultimate cycling shark tank. It feels symmetrical that I turn 40 at the same time the Dirty Blog turns 5, given the bulk of my thought processes and behaviour reflect the latter.

Originally I had planned some colourful and philosophical diatribe which would harness the 5 years of experiences to deliver you something profound to the point you’d wonder if it was straying into Pulitzer winning territory, even if that’s not possible for a blog. Alas, ‘life’ teamed up with a distinct lack of hours in the day to sabotage any such efforts, so you’ll have to instead be subjected to me regurgitating shit. A timely reminder that no one comes here for the meaning of life.

If there’s one thing I hate more than the Shimano consumer supply chain, it’s cliche’s, which made it very hard to write anything profound, as every time I attempted to do so, it eventually arrived at a cliche like “The grass is always greener“, so fuck all that, here are a few things to ponder instead, based on what I’ve learnt or been reminded of over this half decade of Dirty ranting:

Authenticity – From time to time I have to walk into corporate office buildings modelled on the Matrix sets and interact with Humans who are very intent on being the opposite of authentic, which is always as weird as it is cunty. Aside from being disappointing and unnecessary, this is a round about way of saying “Keeping it real” should always be a priority.

Thankfully in cycling, apart from Team Sky, we’re blessed with mainly authentic units. My Twitter feed reminds me hourly that the creeping dystopia is filled with cunts who practice extreme hypocrisy or are allergic to the truth, so the best thing we can all do is keep the authenticity strong. Not being ‘you’ is also the path to fuckbaggery, so worth considering… And avoiding!

Good cunts – Some times it feels these are an endangered species, but luckily for us as cyclists we’re still disproportionately stacked with GC’s compared to the wider Gen Pop. Don’t look this rad cunt gift horse in the mouth, make sure you keep in touch, make an effort to plan the next adventure and keep rolling with your crew as often as one can. Having moved to quite literally the middle of nowhere, I can attest to the fact that while solo miles can be good from time to time, nothing beats heading out with the #GCcrew:

A quintessential GC scenario

Life is ultimately about experiences – I’m the first one to turn into a mindless credit card fuck zombie when a new Santa Cruz bike drops, or the latest XTR invades my Gram feed, so I cast this stone knowing full well that Mi Casa is constructed of ornate and fragile glass. BUT, at the end of the day, you won’t look back fondly on how many cars you have in your garage, how many jet ski’s that sit regretfully in your driveway or how many pairs of dubiously styled shoes sit in your cupboard – but you will more than likely be quite stoked about all the rad adventures you went on instead.

Fuck keeping up with anyone in society – Unless they’re on a bike, down a mad piece of single track or you’re halfway up an HC Col and your buddy drops the hammer, that should be what you aspire to when people talk about “keeping up with others”.

Plus, it’s worth remembering that some of these missions are fucking hard… We can’t all be like the Rodfather shredding at 51 like we’re 15, and this year at Andes Pacifico it became apparent to me that the real top-end missions, the creme de la creme if you like, are a finite proposition. As such – Make muthafucking hay while you’re physically able.

Or in summary – Riding your bike as much as life allows, in new places, with GC’s is where it’s at.

Holy shit, that was all very obvious wasn’t it? I assume so, but if not, then hopefully something here resonated. I already have a nagging feeling I’ve left something out, but I can also see that life is busy demanding that I get off this keyboard and back to other matters. Thank you for reading if you’ve been around for the last 5 years, its been fucking golden to have you all along for the journey thus far.

Indeed, this is a very lazy way to fill up a post with basically a rerun of an Instagram feed over 5 years – However, if it encourages just a single person to book a trip away with their bicycle and have a fucking awesome time while doing so, then it would have been worth the time it took to crawl through the thousands of images that stretched the Hawk server into shapes you wouldn’t even see on Pornhub.

A massive Dirty thank you to everyone who made these experiences and missions incredible, they would have been diminished in colour & quality without you. Prepare for scrollageddon & thumb cramps as we roll endlessly down a mildly narcissistic memory lane from 5 years of Dirtiness:

July 2013 – Whistler 2.0

July 2013 – Italian climbing with Clarso

August 2013 – The Hawk Tour of Niseko and an incredible week on the bike

August 2013 – Singapore Nationals with the Asian Kittel

September 2013 – The randomness of Genting Highlands, Malaysia with the Goat

September 2013 – Cresting the mighty Angliru on the Vuelta tour

September 2013 – Roasting it up on the Abu Dhabi & Dubai Dirty Desert raid

November 2013 – 5 Passes stage race and the Rivet Racing Genesis

November 2013 – Tour of Bintan: 40 degs in the break both days fuckfest

December 2013 – DN Summer Tour hits Perth for the Herr Doktor tour

December 2013 – DNST continues on to NZ to climb into, er, snow?

January 2014 – DNST rocking some green Nomad 2 goodness in R Vegas

February 2014 – First time to Queenstown with Multi Girl and Mad Markus

April 2014 – qTown was so fucking good I had to rush back with some hard hitting homies on #R14QT

May 2014 – 6 Bridges race Indonesia and the skinniest I’ve EVER been on a bike…

June 2014 – Japanese Alps tour with a couple of legends, finished off with the Mt Fuji Ascent

June 2014 – Shredpocalypse 2.0 with Herr Doktor and Moto man

August 2014 – Hitting La Thuile for the first time with Spanky & Crew

August 2014 – Watching Ratboy take the World Cup overall at Meribel

October 2014 – Western Strayla as fuck for the first ever ENDURO race with Herr Doktor and Das Wolf

October 2014 – The end of road racing in the Philippines, broken elbow & collarbone in Dirty Calamity 1.0

December 2014 – The first Dirty Cumback ride thanks to AT

February 2015 – Back in the dirty groove with more Perth Pea gravel thanks to Herr Doktor and Aza

March 2015 – Dirty Mega March visits Mt Buller

March 2015 – Dirty Mega March hits Queentown for an EWS warm up

March 2015 – the EWS debut and some interesting wood features

June 2015 – Hitting Finale for the first time to build up for TP and falling in love with the Italian coast

June 2015 – Trans Provence: Still the greatest week ever on a bike

September 2015 – EWS Fever takes hold with a visit to the awesome Ainsa in Spain

September 2015 – EWS back to back beat down a week later in Finale, a heavy dose of reality

October 2015 – The Diesel tour of Brisbane

November 2015 – Dirty Calamity 2.0, a fun spin on Mt Vic with the Rodfather climaxing with a broken neck

December 2015 – Dirty Cumback 2.0, thanks again to AT, whilst I confirm who ate ALL the christmas pies… And Easter eggs

January 2016 – The Dirty Peloton turns out for the largest ride of dirty attired individuals ever

March 2016 – Trans NZ and breaking cardinal full face helmet & sunglasses rules

June 2016 – Bali Bike Park with the Swiss Missile

July 2016 – Getting smoked by Katy Winton at Pila

July 2016 – There is life outside the bike park! Aosta valley mega action

July 2016 – Severe EWS La Thuile beat down and my first DNF

August 2016 – The #AT40 tour hits Girona and the Pyrenees for a mega week of miles and climbing

September 2016 – Back to Finale and into Molini for some redemption and finally allowed to hang out with famous people now I have gogs

September 2016 – Finding some redemption at EWS Finale

December 2016 – Impressing the Rodfather by copying his bike selection and stalking him through the Aka’s

December 2016 – The two best shuttle days ever? Rots with this lot

February 2017 – A totally random Thailand adventure with the Swiss Missile into the badlands of Chiang Mai

March 2017 – NZ Enduro and a day 2 that shall live in infamy!

March 2017 – EWS Rotorua, utter destruction

April 2017 – The boys do Wairoa and stick 100% to legit trails

May 2017 – Stalking famous people in Madeira for more EWS Fever

July 2017 – EWS France in Millau and some more absolute EWS punishment

August 2017 – The Rodfather pops out of a bowl of rice in Singapore, gets some local treatment

December 2017 – 5 years later, finally making a 2W debut in Rots

January 2018 – Crazy summer antics with that man JC Superstar

February 2018 – Another massive week long blind stage racing mission, Andes Pacifico, Chile

May 2018 – Crankworx with The Creator