Why I am leaving the bike industry by Ghostifari

I have been part of the bike industry for over 20 years, add into that the Pro DH racing for 10+ years and you get me. Someone that knows way too much about everything, yet probably not entirely enough at the same time.

Since being downsized from Specialized in 2018 I haven't been able to get a job at all, almost as if I was blacklisted it feels.

I keep getting the "overqualified" line from everyone when I show up at an interview prepared with questions and solid numbers of ROI, KPI and all the other marketing jargon CEO's and HR people want to hear and each time I get passed up for someone less experienced who ends up just leaving or being fired in a year or so.

I'm just done with the nepotism and overall general bullshit of it all. I am tired of fighting for a low-wage, high-stress position with no future, no matter how much effort I am willing to put in.

I have always been a helper and wanted to give back somehow and think I can finally just move away from where I am in the bike world and let it all implode on itself (as it is doing) and just take care of myself and family.

More heart, less parts.

After trying and trying to make a life-long career out of my passion for bicycles and seeing the underbelly of it all I needed to get out to save my own sanity. Go do some real good.

More family time

I have multiple undergraduate degrees and a masters so I can take them and some prerequisites and go back to school, get a masters in nursing in the same time it takes to get an associate degree.

Those that know me, know I have a genuine soul and want to really help others and give love to the world. I also have had my share of life-threatening injuries and can take that and my heart with me to the recovery wards and help use love and laughter to heal.

My good friend Enrico once told me: "There are only two things about life that are guaranteed; you will die and everything changes. The only way to fully embrace this beautiful journey we all are on is to fully commit to the change of life and grow with it as time moves. You need to change with life, or be passed by and eventually pass away, not have fully lived."

And so it is with this I will bow out from the bicycle industry and leave you with the prolog from the book I am going to write aptly named Beer and Wrenches // A life in repair

We met at a young age. I was innocent and drawn to her. She was new, exciting, enticing. I found joy and escape in her embrace and together I felt unstoppable, whole, more than human. Over the years we grew close, we drifted apart, we fought like bitter enemies and loved as the desert loves the rain.

She became my strongest lover, my fondest mistress, and my fiercest dominatrix. She would lift me up and drop me down. She brought tears of joy and pain to my eyes and soul. She taught me the meaning of real love, love more than the physical. A love that opened my eyes to nature, to the universe. She taught me the meaning of desire, pain, and what it truly means to lose as well as morn.

She taught me that life is precious and fleeting, that every moment and every breath could be our last. She made me bled, she broke my bones; she broke my heart and tore at my soul. She introduced me to my best friends and taught me to not trust them; she was cold, calculated and hard but filled me with the joy of a new day, a new sunrise, a new beginning. She showed me the world and offered it to me whole-heartedly.

She taught me the use of tools, of materials and how to make her beautiful. Flawless. Perfect. She was my drug, my liquor and I yearned for her, went homeless for her, I gave her all that is me. She saved my life, picked me up out of the dark with a gentle hand, a whisper of hope and a touch of love when no other was there. She returned to me what I gave her: life.

She was my greatest love, my closest, longest mistress, my deepest passion, my best friend my creator and my murderer. I will always love her.

She is the bicycle.