So I’ve been reflecting on the whole Giant thingy – like, wow woah reflecting like maybe the realness is the how very much cycling one would be expected to do and man, what if you’re not even the slightest bit athletic let alone full blown mad crazy and is liking Danny McAskill not enough to be considered a real rider and what the hell is real anyway?
Good luck to you Juzzy. I hope that you get down to Lorne in the way that you need to at the time appointed. I’ll be here saving and preparing for the long prophesised arrival of the mountain bike fairy*.
And as the God of Thunder decides to go for beers back at Cadel’s place, leaving poor Mary to cash up the till, I wonder if the world of sponsorship mustn’t be terribly fickle.
In my reflecting, I keep coming back to the Filo/Cathlo sense of sponsorship – the esteem, the recognition, the high opinion.
And then I remember that – for a long long time, I’ve been meaning to thank Thatch. This is (instagram) Thatch.
And this is another thank you to Thatch, well written and carefully composed by another person also touched by his generosity and kindness, and inspired by his myriad minds.
I won’t restate the information in Sunisa’s lovely post, but only echo her thoughts with regards to Thatch’s voracious appetite for information and seemingly limitless generosity in terms of IT leg ups. If there is such a thing as digital native and digital immigrant, Thatch is the one guy left at the immigration counter who ignores the terrorism warnings and cracks jokes as he stamps your passport. Hell, he even gives you advice on great places to visit, that amazing restaurant you’d have never heard about except from a local, and a handy tip about how to avoid the extra toll road on the way there.
When I started work at the place Thatch worked, someone I greatly respect said to me, “if you only do one thing in this job and that thing is learn something from Thatch, you’ll be doing well.” They weren’t wrong.
Thatch was my first sponsor here at Helmets are Hot. Because he set up this blog for me. And patiently explained analytics and twitter and tried – ever so valiantly – to bring me into the bright new world. Sometimes I feel just like my communication is as ineffective as when I used to leave zines under car windshield wipers, slotted under the doors of cafes I loved, and in the mailboxes of a hundred of my fellow apartment block dwellers. Sometimes I can’t tell if anyone is listening, or if I am just junkmail in a world full of junkmail. Other times, I feel that, however, small my impact is on the world, I have walked alongside some really cool people.
So thank you Thatch. Thanks for the niggling, the jiggling, the carryology, the unexpected links, the random and the beautiful – I might not be able to keep up with your cadence and your power, but you’ve inspired me on my ride.
*the mountain bike fairy is the husband who, having upgraded his own ride far too many times, has moved onto his long suffering wife who was previously unaware that her bike so desperately needed upgrading, such that her old ride is languishing in the garage.
eleanor j jackson 