It’s always a little tricky selecting the focus for these roundups. There’s never a shortage of unique stories or interesting pieces of new gear to write about. Yet, the close of another year feels like it merits something a bit more introspective or thought-provoking – something that feels settling, calming, and reassuring as we’re all headed into the New Year.
The short film The Last Observers does the trick, I believe. Spoiler alert – there’s zero bike content here. Without knowing much about the film, the concept of being the last of anything is intriguing. Words like perseverance, steadfastness, and Pedro Pascal come to mind. In this case, director Maja Mikkelsen documents her parents’ lives as the last people to manually record weather observations at a lighthouse in Southern Sweden. For 36 years, the couple made manual recordings around the clock – every 3 hours, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In total, they tallied over 100,000 observations and never missed a single recording. Not once.
It’s the story of the time. Manual ways being replaced by more efficient ones. While the weather will still be recorded electronically, removing the on-the-ground human component feels like a loss that’s magnified by the changing climate the couple witnessed over their tenure of nearly four decades.
I’m only just about to turn 37 myself, so it’s difficult to comprehend that level of consistency in something so pure as observing. For me, the film was a much-needed jolt. In some ways, aspects of my personal life have become unnecessarily complex, filled with the need to make good use of time, and I’m afraid it’s come at the cost of being a more engaged observer and participant in the natural world around me. Life is busy, so I’m sure you’ve felt the same thing too at times.
Now for the bike segue. A quick ride or an overnighter is often just the reset you need in these moments. It forces observation simply by getting out and away. In 2024, we hosted ten Breakfast by Bikes and served up hundreds of pancakes, gallons of coffee, visiting several great parks and natural spaces around the city. We also co-hosted two Adventure Storyteller series and seven overnighter trips around Southern Arizona at places like Kofa Wildlife Refuge, Catalina State Park, and Colossal Cave Mountain Park to name a few. Campfire Tidbits, a weekly update via our newsletter, also launched this year as a way to give insights into what’s happening at the shop with our amazing crew of folks who make so many bike dreams happen. We’ve got plenty more of that lined up for 2025, so be sure to check out our Events and Rides page to see what’s in the works. Breakfast by Bikes are already scheduled through April, and we’ll be adding our overnighters in the coming weeks.
We hope to catch you at one of these events, and here’s wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
More news!
- Rider Resilience: The non-profit has existed for a few years, but they’ve just released a powerful 20-minute film about riding bikes and what it can do for us.
- Ryan Le Garrec’s bike-collage-magazine-thing: The first edition of an experimental collage of stories on bike touring, racing, and culture.
- The Swag Family calendar: The family of 5 is still on the road, somewhere in South America, at the moment, and you can support their amazon trip by picking up a one-of-a kind 2025 calendar over on their website.
- Old Man Mountain Experimental Bikepacking Team: Applications have closed, but I’m very curious to see how this unique concept grows over the years.
- The Outdoor Life: A sweet film about a father and 13-year old son sharing some of the most challenging races in the world together, including last year’s Arizona Trail Race.
- Cass Gilbert’s 2024 gear roundup for BIKEPACKING.COM: For a brand that probably draws a lot of its income from ad revenue for gear brands, I thoroughly enjoyed Cass’ perspective on the gear that made his list this year. It was actually a theme consistent across all of the editors’ roundups for the year, which I found refreshing.
- The EXPLORE Act: We mentioned this bill when it was being voted on a few months ago, and now after ten years of effort, the act has passed! Some of the projected benefits are improved long-distance biking infrastructure, protection for Wilderness climbing, and improvements to the permitting process for outfitters and guides.
Leaving you with a scene from the Tucson Rodeo mural that’s being painted just down the street from the shop.
