Dear BMW enthusiast,

The motor cycle is a constant challenge to a man; a challenge to experience the adventure of man’s command over the machine — direct and unadulterated. Wind, weather and road conditions must be tackled and mastered anew — on every single occasion. And above all, the machine —

You have chosen a BMW with its wonderfully refined, powerful twin cylinder horizontally opposed engine and shaft drive — “the greatest”, as our American friends might say. We congratulate you on this decision.

Our Owner’s Manual contains all the information you need to enjoy the unspoiled pleasure of riding this fine motor cycle, and also the care and attention needed to maintain the value of this precision machine. Please study the contents — in a very short time you will become familiar with the features of your BMW.

Now you can start to enjoy a quite exceptional experience: true riding pleasure — in dense city traffic, on narrow, winding mountain roads, and along the endless concrete ribbon of the cross-country highway.

Sincerely yours,

BAYERISCHE MOTOREN WERKE AG

I wish I could shake the hand of the man who penned this introduction to the 1976 edition of the BMW Motorcycle Owner’s Manual. We’d together partake in a nice Maduro and a glass of Scotch while discussing the finer points of Hemingway’s prose. All this, of course, after a long summer’s ride “along the endless concrete ribbon of the cross-country highway”.

If you’re a man and that intro didn’t strike a resounding chord in your soul, I’d start checking for a pulse. When I first read it, I got literal goose bumps on my arms and a tear of nostalgia in my eye for a period of time in which I’d never lived — born in 1980, I just missed this golden era of literary greatness. Never has a technical document gotten me so energized about the prospect of masculine adventure and the challenges of the open road.

I’ve been a lover of BMW motorcycles for a long time. The brand is synonymous with adventure on two wheels, like the Land Rover is to four. They’re ubiquitous around the globe; from the cobbles of Europe to the desert sands of Africa.

My old friend and guitar teacher, Dr. Rod, a professor of music at Columbia International University, has taken regular summer road trips across the wide expanses of America on his Beamer for as long as I can remember. Early on in his adventures he began journaling on the road and posting his writing on Facebook. After developing a cult following, he adapted the written journals into a Podcast entitled, Caol Áit, or “Thin Place”, narrated by himself to the tune of music which he himself produces and records. Reading (or listening to) his stories about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of his trips into the wild unknown, and his reflections thereon, is enough to awaken even the most dormant of souls from slumber. These journals were the impetus for my desire to take a road trip of my own — a journey of self-discovery you might say. So in the summer of 2010 I purchased a ‘95 BMW R1100R off of Craigslist.

The bike was beautiful — an absolute dream to ride. Plans were being laid to ride out west from South Carolina to Oregon and back. I joined BMW MOA and started pouring over threads on adventurerider.com. I’d become entranced by motorcycle adventure culture. I ate up everything about it: the clothing, the gear, bike maintenance and repair, where to stay on the road, stealth camping, the whole bit. I was obsessed.

Then I met my now wife and daughter, and my desire to skip town and spend months on the road in solitude and self-discovery quickly waned. The bike got parked and covered in lieu of safer transportation, and needless to say, the road trip never happened. I eventually sold the bike in the name of good parenting, which was probably the right thing to do… right? To this day I ponder the possibility of that trip, how it might’ve shaped me into a different, more well-rounded and better man. But I digress.

Ironically, my wife come from a motorcycle family. Her father is a Harley man and she even had a Honda Shadow of her own when we met, which seeing her wield seemed to defy the laws of physics — big bike, small girl. But she was already planning on selling her bike before I came on the scene. Not many years after selling my R1100R, though, my father-in-law happened into ownership of a 1976 BMW R60/6. It was essentially “thrown in” on a deal he made for a Harley Super Glide. I don’t exactly know what went down in that transaction, but he came home with two bikes for the price of one. Ever since then I’ve had my lustful eyes on that Beamer and a hankering to “enjoy the unspoiled pleasure of riding this fine motor cycle.”

The gas tank was rust-laden, the carbs leaked, and the tachometer was shot among other things, but otherwise the bike was in good shape for a 40-year-old. It had such low miles though that I wondered where its patina came from. The bike seemed to have a story, one in which would never be told.

Randy, my father-in-law, tinkered with the bike over the years, fixing a bit at a time until it was rideable but not really “roadworthy”. He sealed the gas tank and rebuilt the carbs, put in a new battery and sorted out some electrical issues. The tachometer, though, is beyond repair and replacements are hard to come by and quite expensive.

All the while I would drop hints from time to time about how I’d love to have the bike. To make her my own and afford her some more years on the road, not cooped up in a garage amongst Christmas decorations and three generations worth of old bicycles. Despite my best attempts to bring her into my own loving embrace, she remains in the employ of my father-in-law’s garage with only the occasional bump around the “concrete ribbon”. Yet on every visit to my in-law’s house I take a peak in the garage at that old R60. I’ll sometimes throw a leg over, give the throttle a twist and reminisce about the slight but ever present sideways pull of that infamous horizontal boxer engine.

As of this writing, and with great chagrin, I remain motorcycle-less; a problem I hope to some day remedy, along with setting out on that cross-country adventure now that the little one is all grown up. But the point I want to make, the point of this ramble, is in the substance of that BMW Owner’s Manual.

Here, read it again, straight from the source. Let the words really soak in and permeate your soul.

This message is a call to action. A call to masculine initiation. A call to step out into the wild unknown and experience adversity, challenges, hardships, and to develop the grit and determination to overcome them and to master your domain.

In our modern era us men have become soft, squishy, gelatinous. We no longer suffer, and so no longer have the mettle born by suffering. Henry David Thorough famously wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” The masculine heart is desperate for adversity, a challenge to overcome. But we seem to have overcome all the challenges of life and in turn have become weak. I myself am a victim of modernity. For years my heart and soul have atrophied from lack of sufficient resistance in life. I’d lost touch with the wildness that God bore every man with at birth. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:30, “be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” What happened to this message? Or better yet, happened to us?

This BMW Owner’s Manual has as much to do with maintaining a healthy life as it does maintaining a healthy motorcycle. It has sparked in me a new longing for adventure and adversity. It may not be behind the fairing of a motorcycle, but whatever the adventure may entail, it is sure to be “a quite exceptional experience”, “direct and unadulterated”, and fraught with “unspoiled pleasure.”

I’m going to try hard not to divulge too much of the premiss of my novel, yet, but I want to talk a little about its inception and how it grew from a single spark into an explosion of tens of thousands of words that all came from my tiny little brain. Looking back, the transition from not writing a novel to writing a novel is fuzzy. What I do know is that the story concept came to me over a year ago and started as a “wouldn’t it be cool”—thinking in the shower kind of idea that took root and continued to fester. The story was a seed of some unknown species that I didn’t know how to grow, or if it even would grow—I have a knack for killing plants, as well as starting projects and not finishing them. Maybe there’s a correlation or some type of metaphysical relationship there?

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve always wanted to write a book, but never felt I had a story compelling enough to actually write. Ask my wife and she’ll tell you that I’m an idea guy. I have tons of ideas, all the time—some are business start-ups and some are creative projects—but they 9.9 times out of 10 never amount to anything more than ideas, which is a dismal success ratio. This idea though kept clawing at the back of my skull like a dog begging for attention. I would envision the story in every context imaginable, from short film to YouTube series, graphic novel to literary fiction. The longer I considered its implications the more evident it became that it would need to be a long-form story. There was too much material to cover it in a short story, and I had no desire to write short stories. I guess it’s possible that I ballooned the story into something bigger than it needed to be, which only time will tell I guess.

The fulcrum in which the story began to tip toward becoming a real live thing was a visit with my family a few months back, and more specifically in a conversation with my dad; a conversation we’d had many times before, but one that hadn’t taken root until then. My dad has always wanted to be a writer himself, but struggled to ever get started on the journey. Like me, every time he read a good book he told himself, “I want to write like this, too.” But like so many of us, myself included, he felt like his life was too boring to write about and that he had no original ideas. Still the desire to write has stuck with him, often plaguing him more and more the older he gets, feeling like he’s running out of time. And this, the running out of time bit, was the push I needed to get me going. It finally registered that I was never going to write a book if I didn’t start writing a book. Just sitting down to start was the hardest part, and it took years to get the gumption to do it.

So this story idea finally started to germinate, and it began to solidify itself as a novel in this ambiguous mental picture I had of its existence in the physical world. At this juncture in life I decided I need a monumental project I can submit myself to over a long period of time, something to test my mettle and prove I have what it takes to actually finish a difficult project. I had no idea where to start though, so I turned to a local non-profit in Nashville called The Porch, who sponsor all sorts of writing workshops. I specifically signed up for the Novel Jumpstart workshop with Mary Adkins, a local author with several successful novels under her belt. The class didn’t start for several weeks though and I was too anxious to get started, and maybe a little nervous that the idea would slip back into the ether if I didn’t make it materialize right away. So I sat down at my computer one evening and started to write my first chapter. It started with one line that came to me, you guessed it, in the shower. Getting that line on the screen allowed it to blossom and now I’m about 30,000 words into my manuscript, just over a third of the way through my first draft.

All of this boils down to taking whatever inkling of an idea you have, and getting it down on paper or the screen. Explore and probe the idea. Let it marinate and see what happens. If the idea sticks and starts to grow, then you know you’ve got something. Just do the work of sitting down and give it more than just lip service. Just start typing. It doesn’t have to be good. That first line I came up with in the shower to get the ball rolling has been changed several times since I wrote it. I couldn’t even tell you what the original line was at this point, but it got the ball rolling. Now the idea has gained momentum and is barreling down the mountain toward becoming an actual freaking book that I will have written, and that’s a huge accomplishment for anyone, let alone myself. Sure, there’s still a ton of mountain to descend, and don’t get me started on publishing. If at the end of the day I have a finished novel that no one reads but myself, then I’ve achieved my goal. The rest is way above my pay grade.

Next time I plan to talk about having a plan, but as we all know, plans can change. If you’ve enjoyed this post I encourage you to sign up for my mailing list to get future posts sent directly to your inbox. Thanks for reading!

Ever since I can remember I’ve always wanted to write a novel; a sprawling epic with an immersive world full of characters who readers could feel and identify with. It was always just a spark of a notion in the back of my mind that would surface from time to time after reading a really good book, but I never had a story that felt like it had legs. I share a passion for books with my dad, who exposed me to some of the greats like Hemingway and Conroy, two of his favorites. I admired Hemingway’s ability to draw me in to his books with such simple and succinct language that I’d often wonder how he packed so much punch into so few words. Pat Conroy had a way with prose that tantalized my senses and the ability to paint a such a captivating and honest picture of the South where I grew up. These writers and many more fanned the flame that one day I might write a novel of my own.

Looking back roughly one month ago, I couldn’t tell you what sparked it, but I’m now well into the first draft of my first work of fiction. I’d like to think the idea came about on a visit back home in March, but the beginning of it was a blur. I just remember sitting down at my computer and starting to write the first chapter. I had no real direction for the story at the time, just the excitedness of actually doing it. As the days went on and with much help from my wife, a real story started to emerge from the scattered bits of lived experience in my brain.

Thus far the process of sitting down every day to write has been a mixed bag of pure exhilaration and crippling self-doubt and loathing. I’m learning that writing a book is more an act of showing up every day despite the roadblocks, and just putting in the time. I’ve consumed a copious amount of videos, interviews, podcasts and more on the art of writing and even attended a couple of workshops. Writing is not without its difficulties, as is the case with any creative pursuit, but I truly feel like I have found something that I love doing.

I’m writing this post today because I thought it might be a fun project to chronicle the journey of writing this book here on my website, in part to keep myself accountable, but also to provide insight to anyone else who might have the inkling to write a book themselves. There are hundreds if not thousands of resources to help new writers on their journey, but my intent here is not to teach, but to share my experiences, triumphs and defeats along the way, and to tell you what I’m learning. I’m also very interested in connecting with others who are on similar journeys, and sharing and learning from each other.

At some point I’ll share a bit of what my novel is about, but for the time being I’m keeping it close to my chest while the story and characters continue to percolate. If you’re interested in following along on my path to writing a novel, I’d encourage to you subscribe to my newsletter (I promise I don’t spam people), and follow me on Instagram and Twitter. Yes, I’m back on Twitter despite my better judgement. Thank you all for reading and stay tuned for more in the coming days!

On average we have about 20 people thumping about in this condo overlooking the ocean within stones throw of the Cherry Grove Pier. My in-laws, my wife and her siblings and all of our offspring under us equates to quite a family tree, all under one roof for seven days. We come this time of year because schools are back in session and the beach is less crowded, not to mention the rates are cheaper than peak season. All of our kids are homeschooled which is what makes this work.

This year though, it’s only the in-laws and my nuclear family, totaling a measly five of us. It’s quiet for a change, which is to my liking. Lindsay and I have always been fortunate to get one of the only rooms that actually overlooks the beach, so whenever I needed to get away from the madness of the crowd I’d just step out onto our own personal balcony and enjoy the dull roar of the waves pounding the shore.

This year there is no madness though, and if I’m honest I miss it in a way. We forewent our beach vacation last year due to covid, so this is our first year back and maybe our last year doing this at all. A lot of the little ones aren’t little anymore and have moved out on their own and it’s not getting any easier or cheaper for my in-laws to organize this whole shebang. So instead of going out with a bang it feels like we’re going out in a bit of a whimper, which is kind of sad.

The overall calm of this trip has allowed me to ingest several books which in other years would have been an impossible task. I read my very first Hemingway novel, The Old Man and the Sea, fitting for this trip, and am now craving more. I’ve also set aside the digital camera and have been taking a lot more pictures with my film cameras. Lastly I’ve been writing a lot more, trying to get the crazy out of my head to make room for the calm. The modus operandi for this trip has been to slow down, enjoy each moment, and to stop putting so much pressure on myself to figure life out. You know, just let it happen, man!

I’ll be turning 41 in about a week and have been feeling a tremendous amount of self inflicted pressure to use the latter half of my life to truly make something of myself. The problem is that I have no idea what that actually looks like. My default in the past has been to bounce from thing to thing, idea to idea, hoping for an easy route to success, but changing gears every time the going gets tough. But I’m learning now that I need to just enjoy the journey and to let the destination be. It seems obvious to me now, but still so difficult to avoid, that living for tomorrow in spite of today is a fool’s pursuit, because tomorrow is only another today which brings another tomorrow after it.

Yes, I’ve got some loose plans and ideas for the future, but I’m really making an effort to enjoying the process of getting there, starting with enjoying some southern fried fun on this here beach. This whole year has been a real turning in my life. When I turned 40 I started to pay attention to what I was doing, how I’ve been living. I’m much more self aware now, which is something I guess. Most importantly though, my whole approach to how I live my life has made a major shift. If I stay on my current trajectory, then 41 should be a good year.

Oddly enough, the inner dialogue that plays out in my mind is not about the gradual degradation of my bodily temple, but that I’ve crested the hill of life and feel like I have little to show for it. The years are only getting shorter and I can’t beat the feeling that I’ve wasted the majority of the ones I’ve been allotted thus far. A friend reminded me recently that I have actually done some really cool things in my life like playing in a mildly successful band, living on a boat, owning my own business and starting this photography venture, but most of those are like distant memories now. I can’t help but get in my head feeling like the clock is ticking louder each day, and that I’m not where I want to be in life or doing what I want to be doing.

I partially believe that I am the product of a restless generation of nomads that are always looking for greener pastures, with no regard for the grass under foot. But it seems that there’s more to it than that. I have this longing to live a life worth telling others about. Most, if not all, of the great writers that I love to read got their inspiration from the experiences of life, which in turn gave them stories to tell. John Eldredge wrote a great book on the subject called Wild at Heart, where he explores the notion that the masculine heart is a wild and passionate thing that longs for adventure and exploration.

Another story that comes to mind is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. In the film adaptation, Ben Stiller’s character, Walter Mitty, is a schlub of a guy who lives out wild, fantastical adventures through involuntary daydreams while his real, boring life is falling apart around him. The counter protagonist, Sean O’Connell, played by Sean Penn, is the mysterious and independent photojournalist who traipses around the world living the life that Walter has always dreamed of. This is in essence how I feel, like Walter Mitty, stuck in a rut with only dreams of grandeur. In the film, Walter does go on a great adventure, but it takes extraordinary circumstances all along the way to get him out of his comfort zone and stepping out into the unknown.

I believe that we, men in particular, are hardwired for adventure, and in our modern society we are but kings of convenience. Not so long ago, in the annals of history, daily life was an adventure in and of itself. Life was difficult, and it was an achievement to survive the southern summers and northern winters. People’s minds were focused on survival and overcoming adversity, not just Tik Tok and Instagram.

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives” -Albert Schweitzer

I’m pledging to myself now, in my 40th year of life, to live the latter half with more intention. The first half got the better of me, but the second won’t get away so easily. I pledge, to myself, to turn off the noise of life that distracts me from my goals, to get out of the shallows and dive deeper into the things of life that I’m passionate about, to take more photos and to write more, to not waste time on fruitless endeavors, to stop being a bystander in life and to start being a voyager.

Having recently started a new job outside the bike industry though, I was starting to really miss riding my bike. I missed the camaraderie of the guys at the shop. I missed the fitness gains I had made in the two years of working at the shop and having been more active than I had in the previous 38 years of my life. I was ready to ride.

Cody, one of the mechanics at the shop, had the brilliant idea to get our crew from Cumberland Transit to ride with the guys from Halcyon, another local bike shop, on the annual Swift Campout trip. Swift Industries is a cottage manufacturer of bike bags and accessories that both of our stores sell. They’re a brand that promotes the often under-recognized, “adventure casual” side of cycling that you may not know about unless you spend your spare time hanging out in alternative bike shops. Back in 2014 Swift started what has now become a nationwide event called the Swift Campout, where riders from all over the country get together with their local bike shops for a one night bikepacking trip in their local area. I myself had never been to a Swift Campout event, and the timing of the trip was just right because I needed to get back on my bike.

As you can probably imagine, leading up to the trip I started to worry about it. I’ve never bikepacked before and I wasn’t sure what all to bring, and I wasn’t sure how it was all going to fit on my bike. We were riding to a part of town I’m not familiar with which heightened my anxiety, and to bring my nerves to their upmost capacity, I also invited my friend Jesse from my new job who also likes to ride and I wanted to make sure he felt like part of the group.

Final preparations were made Saturday at the bike shop. My nerves started to calm once I was able to compare notes with the guys. I was starting to get excited. I put my fully loaded bike on the scale. 44 pounds 12 ounces. No biggie, right? Right..? My bike normally weights in at 23 pounds, but I’m pretty sure I had the lightest rig of our bunch, and I happily accepted this small advantage. But pedaling an additional 21 pounds up a hill is more significant than it sounds. The weather was supposed to be hotter than the hinges of hell too, but at this point I was in go mode and there was no turning back.

At 6pm we closed up the shop and geared up to head out. Thank sweet baby Jesus we had cloud cover and cooler than expected temps. I settled into the groove of riding quickly. I hadn’t been on a bike in several months, but within a few miles the creeks of my 40 year old bones subsided as my muscles warmed. Being on the bike felt right. Being with these people on this trip felt right. The first half of the 14 mile ride to the campsite was without incident until Cody, who was riding directly in front of me, caught a nail in his tire. His tubeless tire sealant wouldn’t fill the hole so we had to pull off in a stranger’s front yard for repairs.

We tried to plug the tire, but it wasn’t holding. We took turns pumping air into the tire with one of the tiny frame pumps that are quite a disturbing site to watch someone use if you’re a passerby and not versed in the nature of using one of these pumps. Other riders were starting to pass us from the Halcyon crew who started well behind us. This was taking forever.

We drew the attention of a neighbor two houses down who asked if we wanted to use his bike pump. He was an older gentleman with a southern drawl and a rather large, brown felt cowboy hat that would rival any I’ve seen on the Honkey Tonk strip of lower Broadway. We assured him we had the situation under control, but this guy really wanted to help. After a few minutes of rummaging in his garage he lowered the top on his little red Corvette, redlined the tach, and pealed out of his driveway no more than 50 yards down the road to offer up his bike pump to us. He was clearly proud of this car and wanted to show it off. He parked in the middle of the road which was not without a decent flow of traffic, jumped out and insisted we take this pump from him. “I don’t want it anymore. I need to get this here thing out of my garage. Take it! You can have it!” he exclaimed. We reassured him that we had the the situation under control and thanked him for his kind gesture. He withdrew the pump and made his way back to his car, seemingly defeated. In a last ditch effort to rid himself of this pump, he tried to pass it off to the driver of a pickup truck that was passing by this strange scene, but he had little use for it either. Feeling dejected, the cowboy forcefully thew the pump into the passenger seat of his Vette, hopped in, spun a uey, and hauled tail back to his house 50 yards away.

We resorted to using a spare tube and finally got back on the road. Our group split up a bit and Jesse and I found ourselves riding together down the final stretch of country road leading down to Bell’s Bend Park where we’d be camping for the night. The sun was setting on the horizon as we passed a farm that appeared to be picked right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. We stopped in the driveway to take a couple of photos. I didn’t realize that the owner was standing on the front porch of the house staring at us as we gawked at his farm. I waved hello and complimented the fruits of his labor. He was nice in return, then we pedaled off.

We arrived at camp right at dusk and fumbled around as we set up our abodes in the waning light. For the first time the entire group assembled together around the campfire and a great night of conversation, laughs, food and libations ensued. Exhausted from the day, I retired to my tent at midnight and left the young folk to party well into the night. The combination of sweat and grime from the ride paired with 98% humidity made for a restless night. The temps grew cool as the night went on, but was dank and unforgiving. I tossed and turned and never got more than half an hour of sleep at a time. My sleeping pad made raucous, crunching noises every time I shifted my weight and I feared that I was keeping the rest of the camp awake. At 5am I couldn’t take it any longer and groggily wrestled my body upright.

The light of the sun was struggling to find its way to our neck of the woods but a dense fog was covering the camp. I’m not a morning person at all, but since I found myself roused at this awful hour I decided to explore the area with my camera in search of photos. The landscape did not disappoint. I had the entire park to myself that morning and rode my bike down miles of grassy trails stopping frequently for photographs. Thoroughly soaked by the morning dew, I arrived back at camp a few hours later to find everyone still asleep. I used the rest of my peaceful solitude to make coffee over my camp stove.

One by one the rest of the campers rose like the walking dead. Without much fanfare we all broke camp and loaded our bikes for the ride back to Nashville. Judging by the mood of the morning, it was apparent that everyone was ready to be home. Rather than waiting for the rest of the Avengers to assemble, Jesse and I rode out ahead of everyone else for the journey back. The temperatures were not as forgiving as the day before. The sun burned off the fog in an instant and began scorching our skin and the pavement as our tires whirred on. My lack of rest became evident as my legs burned hot and lungs struggled for air at the first hill we encountered. But as we rode on, I fell back into that rhythm, back in love with being on my bike. At a few points I thought I’d lost Jesse to the wrath of the sun and our lack of sleep, but he would always catch up within a moment with a smile on his face, ready to keep going.

The temperatures and road gradient were at their worst in the last few miles. At the top of the most grueling, sun scorched ascent I stopped for water and rest. Jesse stopped alongside. “Nope, that’s it! I’m done. I live here now, right here under this bridge. Shouldn’t have stopped. Should have kept on going!” Jesse said only half jokingly. At this point inertia was the only thing keeping us going. But you gotta end strong, right? By the time I got back to my car and unloaded my gear, I was beyond beat. Jesse split off to ride home and ahead of me lie a nice, lukewarm shower and a long nap, but not before circling back in my truck to pickup Cody after another flat tire…

On the way back to find Cody, I passed several others from the trip who mostly all looked like their souls had been exercised from their bodies. Part of the allure of adventure is in the struggle itself. Having survived something hard and having stories to bring home is what it’s all about. This adventure was mild in comparison to what so many others do on a regular basis, but for me it was just right. I’ll happily take my adventure in small doses. I fell in love with riding my bike again on this trip, and best of all the roots of friendship I share with these incredible people grew deeper.

Lastly I leave you with a few of the photos I took during my morning exploration. I hope you enjoy them.

I’ve done a few quick, down and dirty pieces. They’re more for fun than anything, but I’m quite pleased with the results. While they are rough around the edges, it does make me wonder what might have happened if I really doubled down on my efforts as an artist years ago.

The first piece is a dumbed down version and my take on The Great Wave, a painting by Katsushika Hokusai. I remember first seeing this painting in poster form on the wall of my best friend’s bedroom over 25 years ago. I always loved that the wave had an animal like quality to it, with the white caps reaching out like claws toward the men in the boats below. At some point I will own a print of this painting. I’ll even settle for the department store poster version. Until then here’s my rendition. It’s missing the boats and Mt. Fuji in the background because I was focused on the wave itself and experimenting with the watercolors, a medium I’ve never used before.

The second drawing is modeled after a picture I took on a trip to Colorado a few years ago. I was driving through Loveland Pass on my way to Breckenridge and pulled over at one of the many overlooks to take the image. The sketch was done on gray toned paper with a white colored pencil and graphite. One thing I struggle with is simplifying the details when drawing at such a small scale. It’s hard to not want to add in every tiny tree.

The third drawing is a loose interpretation of the same photo using different tools. I started by just playing around with this gray, watercolor brush pen to rough in the mountains. Then I drew in the trees using a black brush pen. I really like how you can layer the gray ink and take it all the way to black.

I hope to continue carving out time to do little drawings like these. They’re really fun and I like how I can finish them in an hour or less. I’ll continue to post them as the inspiration comes. And lastly here are a few images of from our snowcation. My daughter and nieces have had a blast sledding down our neighborhood hills. Thanks for looking!

In an effort to start the year off right, I’ve decided to make a few changes to my modus operandi. Namely I’ve decided to fast from all forms of social media for the month of January. For one, it’ll be nice to take a break, but second, and more importantly, I’m beginning to question the impact of social media on my photography and my general well being. I’m taking at least a month off to focus on becoming a better photographer, to read more books, to be more present and to build upon my real life relationships with family and friends.

Some other goals for this year are to put more time and effort into this website, to write every day, to photograph family moments more regularly, to stay physically active and to complete at least one epic multi-day bike trip. More broadly I want to savor and enjoy each day of life, to be more thankful for what God has given me, and to give more of myself to others. No biggie, right?

My wife tells me she doesn’t like to make resolutions, and I’m not typically one to make them either, but for me this year is different. 2020 taught me that the time we have here on earth is precious and limited, and that we should make the most of it while we’re here. I don’t want to live life passively anymore, or to live in fear of political unrest, pandemics, murder hornets or whatever other asinine mayhem that gets thrown at us. So yeah, this is a bit of a declaration for me to live life better.

I truly hope that 2021 finds us all in a better situation than 2020. It’s clear that there is more suffering to come, but may we handle it with more dignity and respect for each other. We are all loved equally by our Creator, and we could all take a few cues from Him on how to live moving forward into 2021.

I was hired into the bike shop during a rather tumultuous time. We were in the middle of the busy season and half of our staff, myself included, were very inexperienced. The other half, the ones who knew what they were doing, we’d later find out didn’t have plans to stick around much longer. Our bike shop is part of a larger outdoor retailer, and there was a rather tense disconnect between us and the rest of the store. Our owner would later admit to me that he didn’t even like the bike shop and would usually avoid the department all together. It was a bit like the wild west, and every Indian was chief of his own tribe of one. The lone mechanic was in a world all his own and would scoff at fellow employees for their perceived ineptitude. He was one of the best mechanics in town, knew it, and wasn’t afraid to let you know it either. The rest of us were stuck somewhere between sales and service with no real training in either. We’d often bumble about with simple tasks and call our competence into question. The shop also had a propensity for chewing up managers and spitting them out. We’d been through nearly five of them in as many years, each with their own ideas and the best intentions, and each leaving their mark, for better or worse, on the landscape of the shop. Perhaps worst of all, our shop had no identity; no je ne sais quoi so to speak. It was clear that somewhere in our 50 year history, we had lost our way. To outsiders we looked like any other bike shop, but under the surface was a mess that no one seemed to want to clean up. Let me back up a step though.

I came from a background in woodworking and owned my own business for a number of years in South Carolina. After moving to Tennessee though I needed to find work and was ready for a change of pace, so I applied at the bike shop as a stopgap till I could find what I thought was “more meaningful” work as a photographer. I didn’t really consider bikes to be a viable career path at the time, but had an interest in them and did ride one from time to time, and I thought it would be a fun way to make a little money on the side. Little did I know that this industry would consume me.

The first few weeks of employment were trial by fire. I did more harm than good it seemed and I quickly learned that although bikes are relatively simple machines, it’s easy to screw them up. I was trying my best but our head mechanic had little patience for my constant barrage of questions. Oddly enough, within two weeks of my arrival, he had put in his two weeks notice, although I don’t think they were related… I don’t think. Never the less, the shop had problems. We constantly had bikes coming back into the shop after repair because something was missed, or we had failed to remove the object that caused the flat tire before changing the tube and all manner of simple oversights like that. Bad reviews were coming in on the regular and it seemed that no one had control of the situation. Then the big bomb dropped, our manager, the one who had hired me, was leaving. He said that it was for a better paying job in the corporate world, which I’m sure is true, but deep down I know the job wore him down. After much effort to reign in the troops to no avail, he had just had enough.

The departure of yet another manager left a vacuum that our owner was hesitant to fill, and who could blame him. Given his disdain for the bike shop and the turmoil within the department, he could have just shut it down, but bikes made up a significant percentage of the store’s revenue. The path forward was unclear and us guys in the shop were starting to lose faith that the situation would get resolved at all. I had put my name in the hat for the management position early on. I didn’t know if I really wanted the job, but I needed the extra income. My experience with bikes was lacking, but I was picking it up quickly and figured my experience running my own business couldn’t hurt. After several weeks of deliberation between the owner and his partners, they begrudgingly offered me the job. To this day I believe it was more of a lack of options than a sincere desire to have me at the helm. But in their eyes I guess it couldn’t get much worse and they might even get lucky with a guy that wasn’t already jaded from years in the bike industry.

The first couple of months were rough. The guys that I was once in the trenches with had a hard time accepting me as the new boss, and had little faith that I could turn the ship around. Even I had little faith and would often come home at night lamenting to my wife that I had no idea what I was doing. But the shop continued to press on, and we started making small changes that sure enough led to improvement in sales, service and moral. Just as I was starting to feel good about our trajectory, BANG, the biggest bomb of them all, COVID-19. Almost overnight all of our staff was laid off and it was just the owner and myself trying to finagle something that resembles curbside service. Everything was reduced back to zero, which in a lot of ways ended up being a blessing.

There was a lot of baggage and bad habits that had accumulated in the bike shop over the years that kept getting passed down to each new employee. I fought diligently to erase these things but Covid did it for me in one fell swoop. Suddenly the bike shop was empty, devoid of all past transgressions, and I had the unprecedented (yes, I used that word) opportunity to start from scratch and make the shop something new. All but one of the bike shop employees took the pandemic as their cue to leave permanently, so now I had to find an all new staff as the store began to reopen after the shut down. First I recruited a solid employee from another department in the store. Then, being in Nashville, a lot of music industry guys were out of work and three of them ended up joining the team. As the new crew all got to know each other I was honest about where the shop had been and where I wanted it to go. We all began to gel and the new and improved bike shop was coming together with the addition of several stand up guys who were willing and able to put in the work to make the shop great. Even the owner said that for the first time in his 15 year tenure, '“there’s not a single person in the bike shop that I don’t like”.

As we gained momentum as a new shop, customers started to take notice. The reviews were getting better and the tip jar was filling up. Customers were receiving better service than ever, and were making sure to let us know. Shop morale was at an all time high and the rest of the store took notice. By making small but notable changes to our policies and procedures and using a little common sense and decency, we were seeing major results. Looking back I don’t believe we were doing anything groundbreaking at all, but by implementing a few guiding principles, some spoken and some assumed, the entire landscape of our shop had changed. Sure, we were making mistakes on a daily basis and do to this day, but they became less frequent and were handled better.

When writing this article I knew it would be easier to break this down into some sort of top five list. This list isn’t exhaustive, it’s not posted on the wall of our shop or anything, and the principles aren’t something that we even really verbalize, though maybe they should be. But everyone just kinda understands that this how we run our shop. It’s part of our culture. And a lot of that comes from hiring quality people and making sure they want to stick around. Without further ado, here are the top five reasons (I think) we were voted #1 bike shop in Nashville for 2020:

1. Just be Nice. Seems like a simple thing, but you’d be surprised how often it gets overlooked. Just the simple act of greeting someone kindly and treating them with respect will often put you ahead of the crowd. Bike shops can tend to have an elitist attitude towards customers who don’t look the part of a cyclist or who own bikes purchased from department stores, among other cardinal sins. I’ve lost count of the stories I’ve been told by customers who were treated poorly at other shops. We’ve gained many lifelong customers just by being nice and respectful. And that goes for the bike too! Never, ever speak ill of someone’s bike or treat it disrespectfully! You don’t know if it was found in a dumpster or passed down by a dear relative. Always assume the latter. Always be nice.

2. Always Tell the Truth. We all screw up, often in fact, and that’s okay. What’s not okay is lying to people about it and/or making someone else look bad (i.e. fellow employees) to cover your own butt. Most of the time the one on the receiving end will see right through the lies and the one you threw under the bus will find out, and the results usually aren’t pretty. Remember, the truth will set you free. I’ve made it a personal mission of mine to always be honest with customers when I’ve messed up. True, it’s much easier to lie, but usually one lie leads to another, and then another. We all know this. What I’ve found though is that most people are very forgiving and even appreciative of the honesty. We live in a world where the bar for customer satisfaction has been set very low, and a few tweaks to your tactics can bring overwhelming results. So just tell the truth, apologize, and do better next time. You’ll be glad you did and you may even sleep better at night.

3. Over Communicate and Over Deliver. I was recently on the receiving end of poor communication with a company who had one of my cameras in their possession for repair. To no fault of their own, they had to keep my camera for much longer than anticipated because of backordered parts (something all too common in the bike industry now because of Covid-19). This wasn’t a problem except that they didn’t proactively communicate with me about the delays, but instead waited for me to call them, already fuming and wondering what was going on. The experience taught me the importance of communication when you have someone else’s valued possessions in your care. It taught me to always communicate with my customers when there is a delay in their service. When someone comes into your store for service, always be generous in the time you think it will take, because inevitably something will happen and it will always take longer than expected. If you think it will take one week, tell them two and surprise them when you get it done early. And for heaven’s sake let them know if a delay comes up! Always over communicate and over deliver.

4. Give Away the Small Stuff. Everyone loves a good win during their day, and what better way to win than to get something for free, no strings attached. We often get customers in our shop looking for random small parts, nuts and bolts, used parts and all manner of other items we have laying around in droves that cost us a little bit of nothing. And while the logical action might be to charge for these items, why not give them away? The cost to you is very little, if anything, but the value of the experience to the customer is often immeasurable. The worst thing you can do is nickel and dime someone to death over the small stuff. But giving a little away is a great way to give your customer a win and guarantee that they’ll come back to you when they need that bigger item. Always give away the small stuff.

5. Always Wash the Bike. When a customer brings in their bike for service, they expect to get it back with its ailments resolved. But the thing they usually get excited about is seeing their once dingy old bike looking like new again. Washing the bike is a simple and easy way to drastically improve your customer’s experience and add value to your service, and in some cases, the bike. It cost nothing but a few minutes of your time, some soap and water, and maybe some elbow grease for the worst offenders. We wash almost every bike that comes though our shop, and we always get comments like, “It’s never looked so good!” or “Its like a new bike!”. So always wash the bike. Your customers will love you for it.

These things may seem trivial, and even like something called common sense, but they really make the difference. You can cover a lot of sins with a little courtesy and honesty. Just do what you say you’re going to do, and don’t be afraid to add some sprinkles on top. I’ll be the first to admit that in a lot of ways we are NOT the best bike shop in Nashville. We’re not the most experienced, we don’t have the most elite mechanics and we don’t even have the most knowledge about bikes. But we have what matters; great employees who care, and we’re freaking nice to people and treat them with respect. And you’re always sure to leave with your bike cleaner than it came in. My sincere hope is that all bike shops would strive to be better. Even the ones that are already great should strive to be better. Never settle for the status quo. Bikes are a wonderful thing that bring people together and set people free, and we could all stand to see more togetherness and freedom in the world.

Well this one was a long time coming. If you read part one then let me go ahead and answer your question. Yes, It really took this long to get my first few rolls of film developed.

So earlier I talked about the Canon AE-1, which I purchased off of Facebook Marketplace. I fumbled around with it for a few weeks and shot several rolls of film on it before getting anything developed. I used a local film lab here in Nashville, shout out to the guys at Southbound Film Lab (go check them out), but decided to forgo the scanning and digitizing of the film to save money. This, in retrospect, was a bad idea. I first tried using my run of the mill, all-in-one printer/scanner at the house and the results were absolutely horrid. I didn’t have the right software, the hardware wasn’t capable of the task either and I generally had no idea what I was doing. So I called up a buddy of mine to help out and he agreed to let me use his scanner and to show me some tips and tricks.

After getting the film scanned for real I noticed a major issue with the Canon AE-1. It seemed that the shutter curtain wouldn’t always open when pushing the shutter button, so I had a good number of missing frames which was no good at all. It became clear fairly early on that the cost of repairs would exceed what I paid for the camera so I started searching again for another camera. I had heard a lot of good things about the Nikon F series cameras and was lucky to find a good condition Nikon F3 at a good price in Atlanta, once again through Facebook Marketplace.

A couple weeks later I had the Nikon in hand, and man oh man is it a beast of a camera. The shear weight of it makes it a great makeshift weapon to knock out any would-be attackers while out taking photos. As I started playing around with the camera and learning how to use it I noticed that the aperture control ring on the body wasn’t working properly. Once again a faulty vintage camera was getting the better of me. I decided not to give up though and found a repair shop in Atlanta willing to take on the repair for a fair price. After not even shooting one full roll of film I boxed the camera back up and shipped it out.

The repair shop claimed about a two week wait time, but they were vastly mistaken. I’m not going to name any names, but it took several months to get the camera back. Often I would call to get a status and get no response. Once they finally started assessing the issue with the camera they then had to wait on parts which took several weeks long. Lo and behold I finally did receive the camera back, fully functional and a little cleaner than before!

I immediately threw a lens on and went out shooting, five rolls to be exact. My wife and I went for a walk around the park and had a great time taking pictures. She shot on the Fuji and me on the Nikon. After getting the rolls developed I noticed much better results. I still opted to skip the scanning because during my wait for the Nikon to get repaired I had purchased an Epson V600 film scanner, the exact model I used previously at my friend’s house. My results still aren’t perfect, but I’ve learned a lot in a very short amount of time.

I believe that shooting film is making me a better, more well-rounded photographer. It’s forcing me to slow down and think about what I’m doing, make sure my frame is composed and exposed properly. I’m being much more selective in the shots that I take and am careful to make sure all my camera settings are good before taking the shot. I can’t say that I’ll desert digital and move solely to film, but a nice balance of both should keep me focused and sharp, pun intended :)

Here are some of the images I took in the park that day. Let me know what you think in the comments! I’d also love to hear about your experiences shooting with film.

About three months into the job the manager of the department quit and I was the natural fit to take over with my past experience owning my own business. Then Covid hit and everything got crazy. The bike industry completely exploded when everyone was stuck at home with nothing to do. It seemed that everyone decided to buy bikes and we nearly sold out within several weeks. Since then I’ve been hanging on for dear life while the bike industry figures out how to navigate our current market.

The best thing the pandemic has afforded me is the opportunity to hire an all new staff. Being in Nashville, I hired several music industry guys who had been laid off and a few others to round out the staff. All of these guys have become close friends over the last year and have made my job quite easy, well, as easy as it can be. We’ve built a real community at the shop and even got voted as Nashville Scene’s Best Bike Shop for 2020!

Working in the bike shop for a little over a year now I’ve fallen in love with the sport and the community behind cycling. Bike shops always had this allure to me growing up and I loved going to look at all the beautiful bikes and talk ‘shop’ with the employees. Not long after starting this job I bought myself a new gravel bike, an All-City Cosmic Stallion, and started commuting to work several days a week. Then gradually I started going on longer rides all around the city and surrounding countryside. I lost 25 pounds over several months and started getting stronger and faster and had a lot more energy. Now I’m planning a few bikepacking trips (backpacking with a bike) and would like to do some gravel races once they start back after the pandemic subsides. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll do one of the epic races like Dirty Kanza or The Mid South.

Photography will always be my passion, and one day I would love to make it a career. In the meantime I’m enjoying the heck out of the bike shop and plan to keep at it and to grow this new passion. I’m now thinking of ideas to combine photography and bikes, because why not?

There was hardly anyone around minus a few dog walkers and homeless people on their way to who knows where. I played a brief game of cat and mouse with a lone finch on a sidewalk who kept ducking behind a gas main every time I approached with my camera. I would peer to one side and he would pop out the other, then we’d switch. This game played on for several minutes. He was too quick though and I didn’t get the shot.

I initially took a few shots on film with the Nikon, but I really wanted some immediate gratification and switched to digital for the remainder of the morning. It was a little eerie with the overcast skies and empty streets, and the illuminated signs seamed to glow with a halo effect. Below are several images from the day. I truly hope everyone can take a nice break from 2020 to enjoy this Thanksgiving.

It seems to be all the rage with the hipsters to pick up old film cameras and start photographing dilapidated gas stations on the outskirts of town. However my interest in the medium was more in the classic, idealistic, globe trotting, photo journalist sense. I’ve always had this crush on the idea of being a Nat Geo photographer on the ground in some war torn country snapping shots of a crying mother holding her baby after their home was just shelled by the great oppressor. But seeing as how I don’t even have a passport I’ll probably just start things off at the old gas station outside of town.

The first order of business was to find a camera. I had a general sense of what I wanted based on my requisite YouTube research, but availability and finances were my main constraints. It had to be cheap enough for my wife to give me her blessing but nice enough that I would actually want to use it. After a quick search on Facebook Marketplace I found an irresistible deal on a Canon AE-1 35mm camera with a 50mm prime lens. Not the nicest camera on the block but plenty sufficient to get my photojournalism career on the right trajectory. With the wife’s blessing in hand and my Venmo app on the ready, I set out to purchase my first SLR film camera.

The nice lady that sold me the camera gave me ten rolls of film that dated back to when Saved by the Bell was a thing and MTV played music. Nevertheless, I made the assumption that the film was properly stored in a freezer for the past two decades and was as good as new. So I loaded the camera and ran off to the backyard to document the mysterious foliage growing along my back fence, which I later found out was a neglected weed that had grown into a mid-sized tree. Then I photographed the dog, the family, and just about anything that seemed noteworthy to get through a few rolls.

I was hooked. The act of taking a photograph with no immediate gratification was exactly what I needed. It took me back to my high school days in the dark room discovering how awful of a photographer I was at a painstakingly slow pace. It also catapulted me forward into my fantasy world of documentary photography in the African Congo. I blasted through five rolls of film in no time. I never made it to that gas station though… 

No one tells you that purchasing a camera and some film is arguably the easiest and least expensive part of this process. Developing the film and getting prints is a whole other can of worms that I’ll tell you my story on next time. Speaking from experience though, you shouldn’t cheap out on this part of the process. Let the pros do what the pros do unless you want to invest in a rather large amount of archaic equipment and lethal chemicals.