The retirement box

Today I opened up the retirement box. It’s the first time that I had opened this box since I stopped work over three years ago. It’s a reminder of how much my life has changed over the last few years.

When I stopped work, I packed away all my winter riding gear into the retirement box. You see, I live in beautiful sub-tropical Brisbane where we really have only two seasons – hot and humid for about five months of the year, followed by not that hot and not that humid for the rest of the year. The minimum temperature in Brisbane will only drop to single digits Celcius on a handful of days. Once the sun has been up for a few hours in winter, the temperature is normally at or above 20 Cº almost every day. 

Quite simply if you can wait for the sun to come up, you simply don’t need winter riding gear at all in Brisbane – hence the retirement box.  Once I retired, all my cold-weather cycling gear was packed way into my retirement box.  In winter I just wait for the sun to be up for a few hours before I head out for a ride #prohours. Tomorrow I head to Tasmania for 5 days of riding. Unfortunately in Tasmania, they definitely do have seasons, and for this poor little Queenslander it gets “cold”. The forecast predicts temperatures of 5 or 6 in the morning up to 20 – 24 during the day.

So I’ve had to open up the retirement box, see what’s inside and rescue some winter gear. I’m not unhappy about that, instead, I’m excited to ride on new roads in new places with new people. I’ll post more about my trip over the next few days, but right now I’m happy to call Brisbane home and to have a chance to open my retirement box.