COLUMN: A gearhead’s salute-is the product worth the price?
Recently, I took a gear census. I called for all my adventure equipment, from headlamps to longboards, to stand up and be counted. I pulled out all my gear and various items stashed away in nooks and crannies around my apartment and laid it all out to see just how much of it there really was. I have to say that I was somewhat surprised by the size of the pile when it was all set out.
There was 400 feet of climbing rope draped over the frames of my bikes. My skis and snowboards were leaning against the wall; my longboards and sliding gloves crowded in close by. There were a half-dozen jackets, four pairs of gloves and a set of snowshoes. The airboard, looking a bit deflated, awaited further orders. My four pairs of climbing shoes stood at attention with all the carabeeners needed to create a system with enough mechanical advantage to hoist an elephant. The webbing from various slack lines and anchors was neatly tied and waiting for use. Packs, sleeping bags and hammocks lay still. There were some members missing, tucked away in storage: the wakeboard and the skate deck were nowhere to be seen.
As I stood there looking at my amassment of gear, I couldn’t help but imagine price tags attached to all of it. I thought of how much I had spent to bring them here to this assembly and then on the various adventures we had shared. Of course, I, like any other gearhead, never paid “full price” for anything. We instead waited for the “sale” when the overpriced gear would be lowered to a “bargain” which is usually what a reasonable price would have been.
As I added the numbers up in my head, I had to admit, it was a daunting figure. I wondered if my priorities were straight. Was I piddling away my hard-won earnings in frivolous pursuits? I looked at the gear and questioned myself. Was I buying stuff just to have stuff? The gear stared back silently. It all seemed to have little to say.
I bent down and picked up one end of my climbing rope. Turning it over between my fingers, they came away black. Bringing them to my nose, I smelt the familiar scent of rock as it is being climbed. I thought of the afternoons that this rope had halted my falls and returned me to the ground. I thought of the numerous smiles that climbing with it had brought to my life.
I looked at the mud that was still caked on the tires of my mountain bike from the last ride of the fall. I thought of the feeling of wind in my face as I bombed the trail, too happy to touch the brakes. I looked at the scratches in my snowboard from late spring tree runs and the wear on my sliding gloves from long power slides over smooth pavement.
As I looked at each member of my gear collection, the price tags I had imagined seemed to melt away. In their place, I saw instead a list of good times that accompanied each piece of gear. There were stories of afternoons in parks, mornings in the canyon and nights on the pavement. Sure it was stuff that cost money. But I had traded money for gear, and made memories with the gear that money could never buy.
With a smile on my face I threw a salute to the gear. It has served me well. Some of it had been injured on the adventures; some of it has grown old and had to retire. But still, it was ever by my side. So from one gearhead to all of his gear, “Here’s looking at you.”
– dustynash@gmail.com