Wow, had a strange occurrence today

Miscellaneous
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Well the best part was we went and saw our new puppy today. He’s only a little over a week old, so eyes and ears are not open. But he, and his 2 brothers are so cute. That was the highlight of the day.

After seeing the puppy we came home and I started working on something, and got a message from my Bio father. As many of you have helped me with was dealing with him lurking. I ultimately sent an FB message to him, 6 weeks or so ago.

I was caught so off guard that I had to go just sit out in the sun with the dog. I showed my wife the message. Sadly she couldn’t add much advice, but she’s at least supportive. He just lives a couple of hours up the road from us. On one hand I want to head straight up there and talk. On the other, I’m scared to death of doing something. Perhaps I should be more afraid of doing nothing. Regardless, the ball is now in my court. I have 2 half siblings, and perhaps some nieces and nephews that are closer than Utah to us.

I went on a ride today, normally it’d been for training, but today was more for clearing my head. Unsurprisingly my head is not any more clear. I suppose at the very least I should talk to him about family health issues.

I was so mad at him for so long, now, I’m not. Somewhere along the way, you guys helped me get rid of that. I’m conflicted, should I or shouldn’t I meet him. I think when everything is said and done I will. I don’t know if I’ll do so the first time with my wife, but I don’t really know.

As you can see, I can’t even get a coherent thought out right now. For that I apologize.

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To distract you…what do you think of Campy’s Ekar group? :slight_smile:

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CCU - first of all, congratulations for having thought your way through some deep emotions to get to this point.

Don’t be surprised if you find your emotions re-emerging. All part of how big of a deal this is.

I predict tomorrow your head will be a bit clearer, and the bike ride will have a better, more predictable effect.

Glad the UFN community is here. We are family.

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I’ve only read about it. I haven’t seen in person let alone use it.

I love the concept. It’s beautiful to look at, being campy and all. I haven’t seen it show up with my vendors yet, so I can only give superficial views of it.

FWIW, I love Campy stuff. I prefer it to SRAM, Shimano, or FSA. I don’t really see a need to go wireless. I do have a wireless gruppo on a bike, it’s nice, but not really any faster than a well tuned mechanical groupset. My next road bike will have Campy Chorus 12spd on it, mechanical.

If I can get Ekar, I may put it on my wife’s mtb/gravel bike that I’m building for her. Then have it as a demo also.

Frankly I look forward to using it. It’s good that Shimano has competition for the GRX (which is a very well done gruppo). SRAM has beaten both to the punch with the AXS groupsets, especially as 1x groupsets. I see Campy closing and perhaps surpassing that lead, if they can get into the OEM side of things. Something Campy hasn’t done for years.

Hope to have it in my hands soon, but I’m not holding my breath yet. I’m just a small time, low volume builder.

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Glad to have you guys here too. You can give me advice with out the emotions attached to them.

Thanks guys for all the help. It’s been a God send.

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I ride a custom ti gravel bike with a combination of RX/DADi2/Easton drive-train – big fan of Di2. Thought about going 1x, but just don’t like the gear jump because I use my gravel bike for almost everything, except mtb. Have been a gravel rider since 2013 and used to do it on cx bikes.

This Ekar group, conceptually, seems to have the right design in that the low gears (1-6) are closer togther, and also provides cassette options for different ranges. I have three different wheel-sets for different conditions. For some of the steep, rocky routes here in Utah, I use my 650bx48 wheels, with 11-34 cassette. I have Easton’s EC90SL crankset with 46/30 chainrings – sometimes, I could use 36/38/40t cogs. ha

I have never ridden a bike with campy gear on it. We’ll see. Not sure I can give up Di2, though.

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I have SRAM, the FSA K-Force WE, and Campy across a variety of bikes. On my demos it’s lower end stuff, but my personal bikes have higher end.

Shimano is great, it just never felt right in my hands. It’s well engineered, and superbly designed, it just feels odd in my hands. SRAM is almost ideal in my hands, but I prefer the shift actuation of Campy, and Campy feels better on my hands. The FSA WE is nice, it’s crisp, but not as crisp as eTap. I’ve not spent enough time with Di2 to have an opinion there, nor with Campy EPS.

I have a customer who’s broken 2 sets of etap shifters. Not sure how on 1 of the breaks. The other he dropped his bike off his car roof and bike landed oddly.

Anyway, I could go on all day about bikes. Wish we had more dirt here in Ea NC. What dirt there is, is on private property. The state went all out on paving roads in the last 10 years, so public fire roads and equivalent are gone. But with the amount of rain we get here, it was a good idea to pave stuff, cheaper to maintain in long run.

Check my stuff out. I think I have a link to my website, IG, FB and twitter stuff in my profile. FWIW, I don’t have an acct with Shimano, so I can’t get their stuff easily.

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Nice. FWIW…I have a steel, hard-tail mtb from Walt.

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Walt trained me. He does great work, I know you have a great bike if you got it from him.

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CCU, for some reason I’ve missed this discussion so far. To begin with, I hardly know what to say because your personal situation is new to me, and I don’t have much experience with this particular challenge anyway. What I do know is that I’m glad you told us all about it.

I tend to agree with @Buhbye. When I’m a bit disoriented, confused, or taken aback by some situation the person who knows me best and whom I trust without reservation—my wife— is where I turn. I’m not you but I think I’d want her with me in this situation.

Like Ma-ake I admire you for the way you’re confronting this development. In your position I hope I would be doing as well as you are. We’re with you.

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It seems like you already know deep down that talking with him is going to be better than not talking to him… You just haven’t fully come to terms with it yet, and maybe aren’t quite ready to take that step.

In my opinion, talking to him is indeed the best option. If you were to choose to not communicate with him, I have to think that you would regret that.

I am a firm believer that giving someone a chance to make amends (one chance), even if they don’t deserve it, is always the right choice.

As an example, I have a good friend, who is a lady, who was once in a very abusive marriage. They were together for a decade or so, they were not able to have any children. He forced her to do things she did not want to do, treated her like an object, cheated on her numerous times, did drugs, forced her to support him financially while she was a full time student… The list goes on and on really. They’ve been divorced for some time now, he has found new love, and she is still struggling to find someone to spend her life with. She is now nearing the end of her child bearing years, and wonders if she will ever be able to have children of her own.

One day he called her out of the blue and wanted to make amends with her. Because of his extremely manipulative behavior, and flat out dishonesty in the past, she seriously doubted his sincerity. Ultimately she felt that she should give him a chance. They met, and he apologized to her for every last thing that he had ever done to her, and at the end asked if there was anything that he had missed. She listed a few more things, he apologized for those, and it was over.

After all was said and done, she still doesn’t know if he was sincere… but she gained a lot of clarity from the experience. She thought she had forgiven him many years ago, but found that this experience brought out a lot of anger she had buried deep inside, which she has since been able to deal with. She has since been able to truly forgive him for the things he did to her, even though she still struggles mightily with the way things have gone in her life.

She gave him a chance to make amends, she did it on her terms, not his (very important IMO). She didn’t hold back.

My guess is that you are somewhat in the same boat as this lady in terms of where you are in the process of forgiveness. You have learned to deal with your lot in life, and you had moved on, but there are still feelings buried in there somewhere, and those are beginning to surface, causing you confusion.

When you are ready, it is my non-professional opinion that you should meet with him (or talk on the phone, or correspond through email, whatever works for you). Don’t hold back, but also be willing to listen and try to understand where he is coming from as well. You will ultimately be glad that you did not deny him the opportunity to make amends.

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Great post and great story. Thanks.

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