January – London for a week alone. Visted Brompton Bicycles, Condor Cycles, Tour de Ville and a Rollapaluza event. And got so lost within hours of landing that I had to stop some mohawked cyclist and ask for him to, “point me back towards London, please.” Pretty great trip all around, lots of time to myself to explore and think, and got to hang with pictured UV contributor Julian Birch. Had to convince the hotel powers that be that yes, I could have two bikes in my 10×10 room against their policies. I hope to return someday, it was a lovely city with a staggering amount of history for a new world native like myself.
February – Indianapolis for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Besides the magazine work, I handle the “official” show photography and managed to shoot at least one bicycle from and a portrait of each and every builder in attendance. Cool trip even if I spent a bit more time than I had wished in front of my computer processing and uploading images.
April – Cleveland polo tournament. Basically the beginning of the spring/summer season, I cut my hair just before leaving and managed to get a hell of a sunburn on the top of my head. That sucked, but spending the day playing polo and heckling with friends more than made up for it.
May – Dayton for the Midwest Polo Champeenships. Best showing we’ve had a tourny, got to camp in my buddy Elton’s (w/ the dreads) back yard with a bunch of other folks. Killer time with new friends I plan on visiting just a week or two into 2010 as a few of us head to St. Louis for more polopolopolo.
June – Chicago for a totally unstructured visit. Took the Amtrak, crashed with Coyote (pictured w/ cake), got to ride all over Chicago and visit tons of people and places in my few days there. Can’t wait to return, it’s a quick train ride from home.
June – Minneapolis, continuing my Amtrak ride from Chicago. I may have officially been there for a Globe press-launch but managed to visit with loads of old and new friends and rode my bike here, there and everywhere. Even took my gracious host’s (BRose, pictured) killer townie bike for an unplanned, unauthorized ride across town when I was running late for a meeting and my bike was already packed up. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, eh?
September – Philadelphia for the inaugural World Championships of Hardcourt Bike Polo. The tournament itself was questionable, but the game play and players themselves certainly were not. Witnessed some incredible play, stayed with some awesome courier friends of friends, played some shit polo and had fun anyway.
September – Bay Area, Oakland and San Francisco. Holy hell, I love the Bay Area. Every one of my visits there has been more magical than the last, with this one being particularly hard to leave behind. If there is anywhere I would live besides Pittsburgh, this would be it. I’m blessed with amazing friends in amazing places, in this case the Montano’s (Pops and Jason, pictured) that put me up in their family home and simply couldn’t be nicer people. Jason didn’t even care when I told him I took his pictured loaner DeRosa track bike on some singletrack, bombing through the redwoods above Oakland. Again, forgiveness is many times better than permission.
September – Las Vegas sucks, but Jeff and I cleaned up and hit the Interbike show floor for three days of breakneck business. By lunch of the third day we needed bourbon in our soda.
October – New York City for Los Marcos Melee polo tournament. Once again, amazing friends put us up for the weekend and we played and partied hard for three days. Just an awesome fall weekend in the busiest city on earth.
2009 was a good year not only for travel but a number of other things in my life, and is closing on a rather amazing and unexpected note. Here’s to 2010 being that much better, with more travel and more time with my incredibly awesome friends and family.
