Life In The Loops - Bob, The Anger

I find it sort of humorous that people develop relationships with their vehicles. They grow to love their cars for their imperfections, then name them and talk about them as if they are real people. I’ve always thought that kind of behaviour was kind of ridiculous, but then I met Bob, The Anger.

Bob is a black Ford Ranger that I first met when I was nineteen years old. In the five years that we have been together I have rolled his odometer from 140,000 to 270,000 kilometres. The lion’s share of those kilometres traveled would be accredited to our routine trips to the Bicycle Café and Coopers Foods, but in between our daily drives Bob has seen a serious amount of action.

He loves road tripping through the mountains, so we have been back and forth to Whistler more times than I can count on my fingers and toes and all along the coast of B.C. nearly as many times. Bob has only been to Alberta twice - once for business and once for pleasure – because he doesn’t really like it there. One of Bob’s greatest ambitions is to travel the Alaska Highway all the way to the Yukon, but that is an arduous adventure and he isn’t getting any younger.


Bob has also been to the top of almost every rad mountain bike trail between Merritt and Revelstoke. He is a pretty laid back guy, so he likes to bring as many mountain bikers as possible to the top of those trails, and he loves it when those mountain bikers are down for a tailgate party.

Bob is pretty enthusiastic about tailgate parties, or just parties in general. It isn’t too often he turns down an invite for a late night cruise in the woods and he still hasn’t found a puddle too deep or a hill too steep to shy away from. He has only been legitimately stuck twice in his life, both times in a snow bank and each situation was completely his own fault.

Bob can get a little carried away and he has the scars to prove it. Tree branches have scraped his sides more times than he likes to admit and he is growing a few rust patches on his roof. He hasn’t had any major crashes, but he has definitely bumped into a few of his friends and a couple of deer too.

Bob wasn’t always an Anger, but over the years of being such a reliable companion he sort of just became one. He has always looked up to Matt Hunter’s Anger for all his great dents and years of dedicated service, so Bob was absolutely thrilled last winter when Matt decided it was time to remove his “R” and make his status official.


Bob has been a good friend for a number of years now, and I guess that means I’ve become one of those weirdo’s who names his truck and talks about it like a real person. But when you have a vehicle that stays around for so long and facilitates so many grand adventures, you kind of start to feel like it’s a part of your crew. Do you have a shuttle rig that you love so much you could almost call your friend?

Banner image courtesy of Riff Stills

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