First published October 27, 2018
The seasons are changing, and I find myself making the annual pilgrimage to my kit drawer: short sleeves yield to long sleeves, shorts move to longs, and the warmers come out. Naturally, I’m taking this opportunity to thin out and reduce the old kit - do I really need an ill-fitting skinsuit for shredding the trails?
First things to go are old shorts, and that’s easy: if they’re ripped up, or the pads are falling away, they’re straight in the bin. Gloves, warmers and buffs? At the end of the day, they don’t take up much space - do they? It’s when I move to tops and jerseys that things start to become a little more complicated.
My process is to make three piles: keepers, chuckers, and maybes. Next, I move some chuckers to the maybes, maybes to the keepers and then repeat the process. All the time, I’m applying solid reasoning, of course:
- The zip’s bust on this one.
- Oh, this one was from when I was a fat lad.
- I got this one riding in Spain.
- Ah, my old club top - happy days.
- Hmm, the one with the weird material.
Then, after leaving the piles lying around for a couple of days, I’ll concede to my inner hoarder and throw them all back in the drawer...see you next year!