At our house, now that Christmas is over and we are finished cleaning up the detritus of plastic packaging, shiny bows, torn wrapping paper, and the like, we can play with our stuff. And, like most, there is a lot of new stuff.
Yesterday, my two daughters opened around 12 packages each; we tossed out at least four garbage bags of packaging. Most of it went into the recycle bin, but still, that’s a ton of waste.
I know this supposedly makes us good parents because it makes the kids ever so happy, but still it seems a bit, um, unseemly. All that excess. All those little plastic dolls that they covet so much. All those tchotchkes we don’t need (Snoopy earmuffs? Thanks, but you really shouldn’t have. Really.) And yet, all day, we were enthralled by our new stuff. The girls were enthralled by their new dolls–Liv dolls, and several Monster High dolls, which are pretty cool–and played together all day, without incident.
My big present didn’t come in packaging, of course. And while I didn’t park the new Felt Virtue under the tree, the idea of it sitting in the garage certainly enthralled me. And yesterday, on a gorgeously and oddly warm and sunny morning, I rode White Ranch with my riding bud, Ed. The new Felt frame handled amazingly. Since it’s a tiny bit smaller than the old Rocky Mountain, it’s a little bit easier to handle in technical sections, though downhill was a bit scary, as the front tube angle is a degree or so steeper. I’ll have to be careful; this will probably make me more prone to endo, which I am so so tired of doing. I am tired of landing on my face. (Note: the YouTube vid is not me, but certainly could be.)
I suppose you could say that biking is a green sport; you use no gas or other resources when you ride; you don’t destroy anything, you don’t make piles and piles of waste.
But I do drive the car to the mountain. (How I wish we lived close to a trailhead!) I do have a big pile of old rubber tires in my garage; I do have the old Rocky Mountain frame hanging in there, too.
Perhaps I will use the frame as yard art, or make some kind of plant stand. Perhaps I will strip the shock and anything else I don’t need and try to sell it on ebay, for cheap. Perhaps I will find a good use for all those worn tires. And perhaps I am a good citizen because I just paid around $100 in taxes on the frame and build, and supported a local bike shop in the process.
Perhaps I should let my consumptive guilt go and just be happy.
P.S. After some web searching, I found a cool use for old tires–though it’s another thing to buy–at Alchemy Goods. Or, you can make your own sandals. If you are still using tubes, you can make some handy tie apparatuses.
Rocky Mountain Biker 