Sharing stories about coffee, stories, and stoke
6:30 AM.
Alarm blares like a foghorn warning ships of imminent doom along the rocky coastline that is receiving a beating from the angry sea. Or at least that is what it sounds like when your alarm goes off that early on a Saturday morning. You have thirty minutes to inhale a bagel, get dressed, and grab your bike and gear before you head to your buddy’s house for a day of shuttled runs. There’s a whole crew meeting up.
Guilt is a powerful motivator. However, it only works for the short term. After a while we learn to suppress these internal complex emotions and begin muting their voice. Do this! Our conscience screams. Don't do that!! It bellows at us. Either we succumb or learn to ignore. However powerful guilt is it is not very helpful in the immediate nor the long term.
Roasting coffee is ultimately a creative and artisan endeavor. It is a skill and trade that predates the current trend of the explosion of micro-roasters. "Back in the day" many people simply roasted their own coffee at home. You can read accounts of fathers roasting their coffee early in the morning as the smells wafted through the narrow streets of the Italian villages they called home. The only thing that has changed is the technological advancements and sophistication of our machines and the better quality of coffee that is being grown in places from Colombia to Ethiopia to Vietnam (well, maybe a little more changes than that, but you get the point).
There are a lot of reasons why we ride. Probably the least of those is exercise (especially for you shuttle-obsessed DHers ... cough). We ride to get outdoors, to clear our heads of cluttered work schedules, to see and experience new sights and vistas, to connect with our community of other riders, and so story goes on. We also flit in and out of these reasons as well. However, what we cherish the most are the memories. These stories of adventures are what we keep us coming back to. Sometimes they are photo-worthy epic adventures while other times they are comical and embarrassing. We all can recall funny happenings out on the trail.
Marketing is very interesting. On a daily basis we're bombarded with images, sound bites, videos, and appeals all trying to woo us over to buy something, watch something, listen to something, try something, taste something, and experience something. You can't even watch a 15 second Youtube clip without an annoying forced-upon-us 23 second ad. We're simply accustomed to it. We might even think that we're immune to it ... but we're not.
This past year has found me reading a lot more books on epic and perilous journeys than normal. This ranges from the first Americans to establish a permanent outpost and colony on the west coast (in Astoria, Oregon) in the early 19th century to the unimaginable journey of the 16th century Spaniard Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who wondered across the American Southwest after he escaped capture (multiple times). There is something that draws me deeply into these stories of painful struggle, sheer willpower to combat inclement weather and circumstances, daily battles with starvation, lostness, and so much more. I often wonder, as I sit in the comfort of my living room in front of the crazy fire, what compels these intrepid souls to leave comfort behind and attempt the impossible?
