I didn't know I was lonely, until suddenly I was. I had a very full life. Lots of office colleagues. An engaging life partner. Two fascinating sons, growing and mutating like a science project: They’re alive! Alive!
And yet, they were part of the problem. My boys really were growing apart from me. At nine or 10 they began developing their own weird pack of friends, sharing interests I didn’t understand. That’s all as it should be. But it hurt. My personal wolfpack was heading over the mountain, seeking its own territory. And now I was a lone wolf, long in tooth. With nobody to share a bite.
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Don't get me wrong. My wife is great company, but she’s lacking in opinions about the NFL draft, or whether Shai or Nikola deserves the MVP. And she hates chicken wings. You see the problem: I had someone to share my life. But I needed someone to share the nacho platter.
I wanted to take James Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend” literally. But JT never called me back. In that, I wasn’t alone. Millions of other guys were facing the same dilemma. An American Perspectives Survey revealed that right now, only a quarter of American men have as many as six close friends. Thirty years ago, more than half of us had enough buds to form a pickup basketball team, plus one guy to fill the beer bucket.
Now we’re all just…bowling alone.
That was the title of Robert Putnam’s landmark book about social isolation. The title came from Richard Nixon’s habit of stealing down to the White House basement in his wingtip shoes, and bowling into the night. I guess Nixon’s best buds were too busy breaking into the Watergate to join him.
One salient quote from Putnam’s book: “People divorced from community, occupation, and association are first and foremost among the supporters of extremism.”
Does that sound like anybody you know?
Men are also twice as likely as women to own guns, which partly explains the hair-trigger anxieties of this era. It also explains my own intense, emotional need for high-caliber technology.
That’s right: I bought myself an e-mountain bike.
And my Velotric Summit might be the thing that keeps me from running amok.
My outcast state began to fade when I ran into my outdoorsy pal Pedro after church one Sunday. His eyes were aglow, but not with religious fervor–we both belong to the Unitarian Church in Fort Collins, which favors rationalism over holy rolling.
And yet, there was a kind of evangelism going on here. Pedro could barely contain himself as he talked about the power of his E-MTB—how it was getting him out more, how he was riding with a like-minded group of sprocket heads. So I hustled over to Recycled Cycles after church, just to, you know, kick the tires. After three e-bike loops around the parking lot I was breathing heavily–from fat-tire infatuation. All it took was a chain-drive motor and a tax rebate from the state of Colorado and I was one of the gang, again.
Pedro invited me to join his e-bike pack and explore a gravel road that rolls through the luminous valley west of Horsetooth. The ranchers, and their horses, scratched their muzzles as we rolled past, just as their forebears reacted to Model Ts. Only I was fueled by the solar electricity flowing from my roof and the rambling conversations I could now have with my bike buddies. Our motors were doing half the work, so our jaws kicked into overdrive. Sure, it’s embarrassing to admit that your own muscles aren’t up to self propulsion. But shame is worth it if we riders can avoid becoming lonely extremists.
In fact: We need each other.
And I guess that means we need e-mountain bikes, too.
My Velotric transports me. To the mountains. To inclusion. To friendship.
And, hey, it’s way mas macho than pickleball.
