As a child, I had one love and it was surfing. I would spend all day at the surf shop and start each morning calling the surf report hotline with a pre-recorded message updated 3 times a day of the conditions, “glassy with moderate chop and 90 second swells 2 feet overhead with a mild rip at the pier. Low tide is at 9:15 and water is a brisk 68 degrees.” My mom dropped me off at the book store once a week and I’d read surfing magazines. on Saturdays, I’d strip the wax from my board and re-wax it before skating or walking down to the beach. About 10 years after getting my first boogie board and wake board, I was 16 and didn’t go to the beach much anymore.
At age 11, I lusted after Macintosh computers and found one in a dumpster and it changed my life. I saved up and bought an iBook for my 15th birthday, started a website and would spend late nights sitting on the ground outside of the public library using their WiFi to download shareware apps and talk to other Mac nerds online. I started a consulting company at age 13 and would fix Macs and setup Mac networking using AirPort base stations for small businesses and home users. I restored and repaired Macs that were not working and started selling ads on my blog where I talked about Apple and Macs. At age 15, I went to my first Macworld expo with a media badge and by age 18, I was leading multiple Mac user events at many Apple expos, running a profitable Mac news blog, I had just started my job at Apple and was training to become an Apple Genius. At age 21, I installed Windows on my Intel powered Mac and while my passion has never faltered, each passing year I’m less reliant on Apple as a core technology and just enjoy Macs as a user and by proxy, iPads and iPhones. I don’t camp out for iPhones anymore. I still think fondly of meeting Steve Jobs twice and shaking Steve Wozniak’s hand and being in that movie MacHeads and that time that Sinbad and MC Hammer went to my tech party in SF.
At age 24, I discovered craft beer after trying a few west coast varieties while in San Francisco. I adjusted my life to center around beer. Not just buying it but traveling around the world to taste rare beers, collect, trade and hoard. I also brewed beer and learned all of the ins and outs of how beer is produced, packaged and served. In 2016, my favorite brewery that tracks every purchase from their customers shared with me that I spent $27,000 in the last 12 months on their beer. On this blog, I tallied my shipping amounts for a few years in beer trading and this figure exceeded many thousands of dollars a year in UPS bills. I tried almost all of the top 100 best beers in the world many times over and have flown thousands of miles for a beer release of 2 bottles to bring home and throw into my cellar and many of those bottles I still haven’t opened. By age 34 (4 years ago), I stopped chasing new beers, traveling for beers and while I still enjoy drinking almost daily, it’s not a core identity for me anymore. I have been drinking down my cellar of 2000+ bottles to now around 500 and buy less than I drink. I don’t camp out for beer releases anymore.
At age 25, I got my first Golf R and enjoyed that car but it was really my second Golf R at age 28 that took me down a rabbit hole of being a part of the Volkswagen / Audi car community. I spent about $20,000 modifying my Golf R, attending track days, going to events all across the Atlantic coast and entering car shows and sometimes winning. I made plans to buy a project car and do engine swaps and what turned me away was the community where I’ve found car-people, as in enthusiasts are really assholes most of them. It’s not just opinions that differ but social abuse around basic opinions. Debate exists in every community but car-people are assholes. In fact, I have already found when sharing my latest BMW 330Ci purchase online that I’m already getting nasty replies from people about how stupid and bad my purchase of a convertible was or that I picked the wrong model year or I overpaid and it’s about 50% “you’re stupid” and 50% respectful. I enjoyed owning a Golf R but after about 10 years, I was happy to get out of the car community as a participant and don’t think I’ll actively return and just stay in my lane and not engage with the car people. I’ll own a Porsche one day but I don’t want to have anything to do with Porsche owners.
Two honorable mentions without ages associated with them. I became enamored with coffee from the moment I arrived in San Francisco and escalated this passion when I moved to New Hampshire as I wanted to recreate the quality brews from Blue Bottle, Sightglass and Ritual Roasters I had in the Bay Area so I purchased lots of brewing equipment, roasting equipment, espresso machines, fancy grinders and I’d travel to places just to try fancy coffee and it was really a huge part of my identity. I even reviewed cafes on this blog with rich photos and tasting notes. Second would be photography. I’ve had a camera since I was 14 and finally could afford my first full frame camera around 2015. I now carry a real camera with me everywhere but when I used to spend hours a week becoming a better photographer with photo walks, shooting film, developing it and pushing myself with challenging subjects and more, the camera, like coffee has become more of a tool. I spend 20 minutes every morning making coffee and I enjoy it and I even buy single origin roasts and fuss over them, I don’t go through a lot of rigor to push myself. It’s the same with photography. Cameras are tools and while I have a Canon R5, Leica Q2 and soon a Sigma BF, I shoot in auto mode and use Auto edit features in Lightroom to get the job done. It’s a tool and I don’t spend a lot of time fussing over it. It took about 10 years each to arrive at that place. I had a whole coffee bar and camera room in some of my houses and now I just have a shelf of cameras in my office that isn’t organized and a Chemex with Baratza grinder in the kitchen.
At age 29, I decided that for my 30th birthday, I wanted to ride a motorcycle across the United States. I did about 6 months of research and purchased a 2009 BMW R1200GS Adventure. A man who reads this blog found my post talking about bikes and offered to deliver me his bike purchased in Europe and sell it to me for way under value ($9,000 with 10K miles on the odometer). I really enjoyed that bike but it began what has largely occupied my last 10 years as I divested from cars and beer and extended my upgrade cycle of new Apple products, I poured more time and money into motorcycles. I purchased a motorcycle every year and at one point, I had 5 in my driveway with Geico threatening to switch me to a fleet and require I get an LLC if I bought one more car or bike (I had 9 vehicles at that time) and I really ingrained myself into the motorcycle community. I completed long distance rides and earned an Iron Butt certificate (3 times, most recently for completing 1850 miles in 30 hours) and I become President of the Vermont BMW club and Vice President of the national club. I represented all BMW owners in Dubai at the International Council of Clubs, I made hundreds of YouTube videos, photographed race events and rallies and was a member of the press for many 3rd party BMW manufacturers and made a lot of connections to the point that I was getting job offers to switch to the moto industry but keeping in mind that you should never work in the industry that’s also your hobby. I still have 2 motorcycles and I still make videos but 2 weeks ago, I went to a rally and stayed for a few hours and went home to sleep in my own bed and not camp. I skipped the annual pilgrimage down to tail of the dragon with my friends and this year as a director of the national club, I flew into the rally 1 day after it started, did the required meetings and volunteer work, explored alone and kept to myself and on the last day of the rally, I woke up at 6AM and flew home having not sat on a bike or done any socializing. I did what was required but my heart wasn’t in it. I carried my camera and only took a few photos. I didn’t even shoot a YouTube video. Every year in February, I plan out all of the motorcycle events I want to go to for the year and I didn’t do that this year. When my side job offered me a weekend course that coincided with my favorite event of the year, I told my wife that I was going to take the gig and not go camping with my club.
I’ll be 39 this year. In March of next year, I’ll reach the 10th full year since buying that 2009 GS from a reader. I’ll have ridden my motorcycle in Europe, Middle East, 40 of the 50 states, 8 of the Canadian provinces / territories and I don’t have any travel plans on the horizon where a motorcycle is involved. I’d love to still do a few specific rides but like my goals of buying a new MacBook, purchasing a 4-pack of my favorite IPA, shopping for and buying my BMW convertible, visiting a fancy cafe and ordering a siphon cup, watching professional surfing events on ESPN or renting a board in Florida to paddle out, I am emotionally divested from motorcycling at this moment. I still enjoy all of the things I listed above but I watch Apple Keynotes a day or two later and don’t clear my calendar or fly out to an event in person.
At nearly 40 years old, I just realized firmly how I operate. Okay, that’s slightly wrong. I told my wife when I stopped traveling for and collecting beer that I’m usually on a 10 year cycle with hobbies. A few weeks ago she said, “you’re at 10 years with motorcycling. How are you doing?” I think she noticed that she had to insist for Father’s Day that I needed to be convinced to go out and ride trails and she said just this week that this is the first time I ever seemed annoyed that I had to go to a motorcycle rally because I’d rather be home working on my new car. She has seen that change in me.
Humans do change and evolve and change is good and very healthy. I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered any of my hobbies but it appears to be a passion where I find something challenging that I can sink my teeth into and occupy my mind and for 10 years, it’s an immersive thing where I learn everything I can and find validation through affiliation and intellect. People start saying “wow you know everything about coffee” and once I reach an echelon of mastery (not true mastery, just a basic level of know-how), I get bored and move on to something else. I’l never stop loving spirited driving or motorcycle travel just like I still buy nicer beers and fuss over my time consuming coffee preparation but it’s like I learn all I can then move on to the next thing.
This time, it’s scary because I don’t have anything to replace motorcycling. I just bought the new BMW and I’m exciting to drive and maintain it but I’m not going to go to BMW events and drives and do track days. I’m just going to enjoy it. Not mentioned is my daughter Matilda who is 18 months old and taking more of my time so maybe this timing is perfect. I can be a coffee and beer connoisseur who knows how to work on Volkswagens and BMW cars who enjoys riding dirt bikes and taking long distance tours and is a Macintosh power user who has a primary job of “Dad” and is my most important job. That’s okay but I just have concerns about not occupying my mind in other ways. What am I going to explore and maybe this rut is related to finances. I don’t have the economic waste that was in my life before remodeling our home and having a baby. I’m maxing out my 401K (for a while now) and run a pretty lean financial situation from a cost of living perspective so maybe finances being tighter and the time required to sustain the life of a baby has my mind and mentality shifted in other ways.
I had a lunch with one of my former bosses and mentors last week. I told him I was buying a convertible because of the reasons blogged earlier this week and struggling to find the time to find new hobbies and he said that kids change things and while I may be struggling with the shift in priorities right now, soon it won’t feel like a burden and I’ll wonder how I did anything else but be a dad and family provider. That’s just who I’ll be and will have forgotten all of those things that made me who I was before. That’s a part of life.
The problem with writing this post now is that everyone in the motorcycle community, my sponsors, members of the clubs I work with and subscribers to my YouTube videos don’t know this change is occurring. Even if I tell them directly, I think they’ll be confused and thrown off. I can see it now “You’re running this national club, you run the largest regional club. You represent us internationally and you upload 50-100 videos a year of motorcycle videos and you’re just going to walk away? That doesn’t make sense!” I’ll still ride and make videos but the passion isn’t there. I like riding but it’s become just a part of me and not this prolific onslaught of growth and exploration. In 2024, as a father, I rode up and down the eastern seaboard, off road trails in Vermont and New Hampshire, to Alaska and back (12,000 miles), Dubai and UAE and to West Virginia up in the hills and into Canada’s eastern coast. There are more places to ride but I’m confident it’s going to be a slog to get to next year’s national Rally in Vermont and it’s funny because that rally is 90 minutes from my house and I’m sitting here on the fence about buying a ticket because it’ll require 4 days off work when I’d rather use that time to go on a family road trip.
Unlike my other hobbies, no one really cared that I disappeared but with motorcycling I think people will care. I know that could be ego talking but there are thousands of people that will ask “where’s Adam?” And I feel like I’m letting them down. Just walking around the BMW rally this week, a few dozen “are you Adam chandler?” Questions would come up and while this happened at beer events, Apple expos, Volkswagen events and other social hobbies, the motorcycle community is the kindest of any I’ve had and I think I’ll legitimately miss the vibes but, it’s just how I am socially, I’ve only ever had one true friend and that’s my dad. Every other friend I’ve had is based on my hobby so when I walked away from beer, I lost a few dozen “friends” and I know that’ll happen when I stop being active in the motorcycle community. I just disappear and life moves on for them.
When I ride a motorcycle in the future, I don’t need the recognition or community. I have AAA and can get a tow without needing to phone a friend. I think I’ll just do things alone and not try to be social because it’s just easier to camp alone and ride alone and that’s fine.
So…that’s my 10 year itch or phase or whatever you call it. I’m in a bit of a crisis having nothing to replace motorcycling with but that may be okay. Work is hard, being a parent is demanding and I have a lot of movies to catch up on and maintain my health by being active outdoors with my daughter and dog.
I think the BMW Convertible needs new suspension so I’m going to focus on that.