A Personal Look Back on 2023
Content creation is a form of art, until it isn’t…
Looking back on 2023 made me realize a few things that I'd like to share. So get a mug of your favorite beverage and some Lo-Fi music, because it’s time for an intense read.
Out of love for things…
2023 might have been the year I fell out of love with cycling gear. Don’t get me wrong, I love a beautiful bike. Who doesn’t? I used to open Pedalroom daily, refresh my eBay saved lists every time I opened my laptop, and hunt constantly for new fixed gear parts. Yet, now that I’ve ridden almost everything that was available on the market, the novelty of cycling gear has slowly worn off (I’m not including the incredible work of framebuilders here, since that’s a whole other realm of craftsmanship). This year, I started to feel that as long as I had something that rolled, I could go anywhere, feel free, and ride with the people I love.
Maybe the past twelve months caused this shift since they were pure hell on so many levels–being ultra busy with work with very little payoff. Having emotional breakdowns while also supporting friends who were going through rough moments. Being constantly frustrated about not having enough hours in a day, and having to delay projects or give them up completely (You probably saw a few unfinished/canceled projects on this website this year).
But in Love with people
But, in retrospect, maybe falling out of love with the “material” aspect of my passion wasn’t such a bad thing. Because 2023 was also the year I decided to get out there, meet new people, travel more, and make SSS less of an online thing. This year took me to London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, and San Francisco, and I can safely say: I had a blast!
One of my favorite moments was meeting so many of you during the RadRace weekend in Berlin. I got an overwhelming feeling that our culture, this very small niche in the vast universe of cycling, was most definitely alive and well. And it made me remember why I started this platform in the first place. I wanted to share my passion for cycling through a medium that wasn’t as limiting as Instagram or Flickr.
The SSS Project?
I, and by extension everyone else that works for SSS, don’t make any money from this platform. It’s purely a passion project, and sometimes I forget that my investment in it can be a bit extreme. As an SSS team, we have been trying to keep deadlines, precise scheduling, and a bunch of other things that would make us a “proper” media powerhouse. But ultimately, everything on this platform is mostly unscripted self-expression. I’ve realized that respecting strict, self-imposed scheduling, aiming for the best ratio between time invested, viewership, and other “almost commercial” practices are just not what I’m about.
That’s why we’re going to switch things around again.
Again?
YES!
And we’ll continue to evolve until we figure out the combination that works best for us. In episode 98, you’ll hear more about what our plans are for the podcast. We’ve previously talked about including other forms of cycling. Yet, when it comes to the blog, getting out of my “track bike comfort zone” has proven to be more challenging than I anticipated.
The Photography
SSS was born from my love for both photography and cycling. I’ve learned so much about shooting in the past three years, even though I've mainly been taking pictures of people and the bike they're riding.
Film photography is my favorite medium, and this year I started to doubt if some of the shots I’ve taken reflect what I love about it. Some of the pictures I created for upcoming articles are great shots, but contain zero artistic value. There is nothing wrong with this type of photography, in fact, it’s a crucial contribution to the record of fixed gear culture. But it’s not my style. My love for photography stems from viewing it as an art form, and the specifics of film as a medium add several layers to my desire to view photography as an intentional act–with the ever rising price of film, you can understand why I sometimes bite my nails when I get my stuff developed only to feel like I shot a roll of pictures that could have been taken on an iPhone and posted on GCN. (No hard feelings)
The Art
That’s why, in 2024, SSS content will start to have an organic pace instead of caving into the algorithm-imposed pressure to constantly, consistently publish new material. But while the quantity may decrease, the scope of SSS will expand. One thing that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed since the beginning of SSS is shedding light on unique, weird, deeply personal creations in cycling. There are many projects out there that deserve to be documented and shown to a wider audience, and I will still continue to write fixed gear-related articles. But I might also start to include photography equipment, my travels, some interesting stories, some photo dumps…who knows. I want to experiment with branching out in a way that allows SSS to get back to its roots.
If 2023 was the year my relationship with fixed-gear shifted drastically, 2024 will be the year I’ll try to nudge people off the beaten path, encouraging them to create their own vision of cycling and combine their passions.
Thank you for following what I do, and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy my work.
Paul
One more year baby!
🎞: Ilford XP2
📷: Leica M6
📍: Tokyo
