The history and future of this blog

For better or worse I’ve been journaling online, or blogging, for about 25 years which is funny if you know me since i’m a pretty quiet, introverted person. But for some reason I enjoy writing and not caring if anyone is reading. There’s something therapeutic in the process of it all.

I remember a teacher saying to me, if you don’t think clearly you won’t write clearly. I’ve also found that if you don’t think clearly you can’t speak clearly. I mumble and many times can’t elucidate what I want to say, the thoughts are jumbled and the words just don’t make their way out quickly. But I can start writing without feeling like a mumbling dumbass and come back to edit the mess of words that eventually turns into something that’s at least coherent and at best worth reading (I hope).

It started around 1999 when I was on the grassroots Ionic-Nema race team. One of the guys was already coding and created a website for us to write about our rides, bikes, and submit race reports. That site didn’t last long but the blogging world had taken off and I started my own shortly after. It was the Instagram of the day, sharing photos, stories, and in my case a lot of rants. I guess I had a lot of opinions on bikes, trail etiquette and design, and I don’t remember what else honestly. I believe i started out on Blogger, then to Meriwether-rants.typepad.com. (This past September, Typepad deleted all the archives so that can’t be found either.)

When i started scheming about making bike stuff i created Meriwether-Fabrications which was part normal blog and part my entrance into the world I’m in now. It started with selling singlespeed chainguides called Discos that a friend Travis and I made on a Drill press with a couple of hole saws. QC wasn’t to good so we eventually got them made by a plastics company in Boulder that also supplied college kids with their bong material. We schemed a lot of random bike part ideas over coffee (east side Vics!) and on the ensuing cross rides each Fall (now they’d be called gravel rides). We ground down big chainrings to make front guides in order to run 1x setups, chainline be damned. We wished for bigger tires than the 700x34mm max that was allowed in racing and available at the time. We modified snowmobile pogies to keep our hands warm while commuting to work and riding in winter. We envisioned a clipless pedal system that had a clip on “toe-pogie” that would wrap up from the unused clip to keep your toes dry and warm (I still think this needs to happen). Seeing where bikes and components have gone i wish we had come up with that million-dollar idea (as if) but at least we had some fun trying.

When i realized i was actually building frames that could be ridden many years later, i started the current WordPress site you’re reading now. All but a few years since 2010 are documented and started around here. When i hung out the shingle in 2013 i hid the posts that showed i was once an awful welder and fabricator but I recently made all of those public again so new builders can learn from my mistakes. Although the game has changed so much i’m not sure a lot of what i posted is relevant or useful anymore. At least it’s there for when I get Dementia and can’t remember what I did with my life. Photos tell so much but I hope my words add on something useful too. I don’t pretend to be the best builder, welder, fabricator, or the most knowledgeable. I just know that I learn something every time I go in to the workshop and that’s what keeps me coming back. The creation of stuff that wasn’t there before the brain worked out how to make it so, it’s addicting.

So there it is…have at it…or don’t…i’ll be here either way.