Being a Benefit Bike expert and trusted advisor sometimes feels a bit absurd. How did it come to that? I mean, today bikes are a hobby and a profession to me, but there was a time when they didn’t play even the slightest role in my life.
What happened?
As a kid, bikes were an integral part of my everyday life. If I wanted to move around I either rode a bike or walked.
Back in the days bikes were fun
As a kid, bikes were an integral part of my everyday life. If I wanted to move around I either rode a bike or walked. That was the life of an early 80’s kid in a small countryside village of Eno in eastern Finland.
Beyond just being a transportation vehicle for a kid’s imagination, bikes also were tools to channel that very imagination in many ways. One day my old Tunturi Poni was a motorcycle from the old school TV series Knight Hawk. The next day it was a slingshot as I rode into snowbanks just to slingshot frontflip myself over the bars.
I guess in the end it wasn’t a big surprise that it ended up having twisted rims when I eventually realized I could jump it too….
The boring verge of adulthood
When you grow up things change. And I grew up. Started studying. Moved to a city with public transportation. For whatever reason, slingshotting over the bars wasn’t a daily priority anymore.
In reality though, bikes were still hanging on for some time. In the early days of my studies I was quite broke. There was no fun factor involved in cycling anymore, only practical reasons. It was cheaper to ride a bike to Muay Thai training or to meet friends living in another suburban area than taking a bus.
Why suffer with a bike and be a slave of the weather when there’s a more comfy option available?
When I finally reached the comfortable middle class it sealed the deal, a car and public transportation now took me everywhere. Why suffer with a bike and be a slave of the weather when there’s a more comfy option available?
Something is missing
After some time of drifting through life and learning who I am, a thought process started. It was triggered by a feeling that something was missing. I started to pick up minor hints here and there that didn’t feel familiar anymore.
Some of them started to feel almost agonizing even. Getting married, having kids, climbing the corporate ladder, building a house and playing golf on vacations. I started to ask myself why I am not feeling that those would be my priorities?
I had already adapted to what my life at the time was without recognizing the need to dig deeper. I had buried my childish dreams by allowing myself to drift without questioning what I had accepted to be normal.
But the further it went the more impossible it seemed to become for me to mentally handle. Something was clearly missing and to be capable of enjoying life better I needed to find what it was.
Something was clearly missing and to be capable of enjoying life better I needed to find what it was.
The discovery
Eventually I learned that I’m an explorer of some sort. I live for experiences. For me, life was never about only owning a house and having a family.
Instead, I often seemed to catch myself dreaming of being an X-games athlete. And when things like playing golf were not my cup of tea, thinking about jumping off a cliff with a parachute then again always got the tickling feeling activated.
That discovery was so impactful that it eventually got me to quit corporate jobs and seek startups, experiment my abilities with high speed motorsports and last but not least to start skydiving and downhill biking.
And just like that the bikes came back to my life. It was based on a discovery that from them too I require something that truly suits me. I want to be scared and thrilled to ride them because that’s what I love. I’m good at controlling my psyche and I just absolutely love the feeling of being able to deliver when in fear. This same logic I get to some extent apply in the startup world as well.
Against this discovery it doesn’t feel that absurd to be involved with Benefit Bikes anymore either.