500… Its a nice, big, juicy round number. It certainly feels like a decent milestone and indeed it gets used in some big events. WTF am I talking about? Indy 500? Fortune 500? The ‘300’ with 200 reinforcements they clearly needed? The Undie 500? 500 Days of summer? Perhaps even one of these:

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500 as fuck… But SO out of place on a cycling site

No, none of those things. Instead, I present to you a very simple 500 today:

This is the 500th Dirty Nomad Post!

Don’t worry, it even made me say “Holy fuck thats a lot of ranting and gibberish…“. I had to double/triple check, but indeed we have reached that crazy half of a thousand milestone that I didn’t really envisage I would ever get to.

Granted, it did take me 765 days to get here, not to mention 4,737 images, 120 videos on Vimeo (and about 3 x 2TB hard drives of Go PRO footage) and at a cost that would even scare Columbian money launderers into turning themselves in. For the record, advertising revenue remains at $0.00, apparently something to do with tone and manner.

But forget all that boring shit, how about some stats instead! As you’ll see, I messed up by not signing a contract with Dorel for a ‘dollar per view’, pram building fuckbags that they are. That aside, here are the top 5 most viewed posts out of the 500:

  1. Cannondale CAAD10 Review – At a touch over 3,000 views, appears that this bike has a slightly cult following, perhaps its a reflection of just how good it is? Or perhaps people just like a really weird review?
  2. Cannondale SuperSix Evo Review – Reviewing road bikes is boring in reality, unless its a shit one you can bag out massively, and the Evo doesn’t fit in that category (PF30 and paint jobs aside). All you can really say is they’re light, provide a certain ride quality and talk about their stiffness… Creepy.
  3. Rotorua EWS Stages 1 – 4 – Salvation! Its about time something ENDURO stepped up into the top 5. It seemed this one was quite popular, aided by someone putting it on Fuckbook at some stage and it spread like syphilis during Orientation week. The now famous “Squashed your banana cunt” the main driving force behind this post getting some love
  4. Wahoo Kickr Review – If you fuck yourself up riding the world’s worst TT in a total shithole, then I can highly recommend the Wahoo Kickr to aid your recovery process. I’m not sure prospective buyers would have gleaned any useful details about the product from this ‘review’, but it did have a good picture of the box it came in. Essentially the drunk and mildly stupid version of the DC Rainmaker review.
  5. Stages Power meter Review – Secretly, who doesn’t love a good bagging? After all, thats why they invented the Internet, aside from Porn and lying about how awesome your life is on your Fuckbook feed to make your mates feel shit. As such, its no wonder this ‘review’ made it into the top 5. Ironically after fingering the Stages, it came right and hasn’t missed a beat since… Which means by writing this it will implode in the next week.

What does this tell us? Well, you can pretty much write any sort of ‘review’ you like, stick it on the internet and it turns into some sort of Google gold, let me know when the cheque is in the mail Cannondale…

I really wanted to write something profound and enlightening for the 500th post, to really knock it out of the park, get into your hearts and minds, make a song and a dance about it, a slap and a tickle… A smoke and a Pancake… The tongue and the finger and so on and so forth. But ultimately I wanted to leave a massive impression and send you off into a quest for some form of cycling enrichment… But that’s all quite tiring.

In the end I realised that wasn’t a ‘core competency’, so like a Corporate zombie I have decided to outsource that shit to the Dalai Lama. I’ve done what? Those that know me will instantly realise that I am about as spiritual or enlightened as a donut being rimmed by Ariana Grande. I also regularly vomit in my mouth when people clog their LinkedIn or Twitter feed with feel good philosophy posters.

But for some reason, this one really stood out for me… Its questionable as to whether the DL actually said this shit, but if the last 500 posts have taught me anything, its that this scenario is all too real (think about a few cunts at work you know… Yeah, start nodding…), and is to be avoided if possible:

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I think he’s trying to say that shredding on a Nomad 3 is the path to enlightenment

How does that translate into cycling? I guess that’s in the eye of the beholder, but I would say that based on all the adventures that sit behind those 500 posts, its about realising that the quest for ‘more’ or ‘better’ stuff is never ending and doesn’t actually make you any ‘richer’ (note – That sentiment doesn’t apply to purchasing Santa Cruz’s). But the quest for more rad singletrack, or another Col summit and enjoying those moments and experiences is a good place to start living. Wow, as deep as a paddling pool there…

Ok, so the only other Dirty tips I really have to add to that upon reaching the Dirty 500 milestone, roll eyes now with predictability 1) Spend as much time as possible in the Mon-Tons, even if it makes you appear strangely narcissistic when you translate that into a montage:

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“Just love the Mon-Tons” says the dude that lives in Singapore

2) Yes, yes, yes… The People. Remember the golden rule: No cunts. Yes, there are so many good ones out there, no point in persisting with the other variety. I’m fortunate enough to have met and rolled with a lot of rad units either in the DN Global Collective, or who just pop-up unexpectedly along the way in a mission. To demonstrate my point I tried to ram a whole lot of the GC’s into a MF montage and still couldn’t fit them all in (and yes, this took me a fucking long time):

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More GC’s than you can shake a Dirty Montage at

3) No matter what flavour is on offer, always choose Lemon/Lime. Applies to everything.

A massive Dirty thank you to everyone that has been involved in the living, formulating, experiences, travels, radness, suffering and awesome times that were the ingredients to those 500 posts. This includes those that read along the way, or got stoked and went for a ride.

Cheers and here’s to the next 500…

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2 Responses

  1. Diana

    Congratulations on reaching post 500. I don’t own a bike, probably never will now, but sometimes I just really want one after reading your blog!

    Reply

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