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So, I have decided to retire, really badly, because, quite simply: It does not cost a lot to be poor and ride your bike all day. 2015, A Surly sticker ...
By charliedontsurf
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Oh no. Sorry to see you leave Charlie but you've clearly got exciting notions of things ahead.
Best of luck for the future 😊👊
It's been a blast Charlie... Enjoy the new life fella.
Sorry to see you go Charlie, All the best.
Enjoy the next phase... I'm just a little bit jealous. I remember popping in to the shop in Swanage (12 or so years ago?) for a chainring and came out half an hour later with a chainring, a bunch of 'this machine kills facists' stickers and a better outlook on life.
Can you do one last sticker run before you let the door close behind you?
Best of luck Charlie! Enjoy every minute of it!
Welcome to the club Charlie - a wise person once said "you don't defer retirement, you lose it" so I decided to quit while I could still do all the things that I spent my time at work wishing that I was doing.
a wise person once said “you don’t defer retirement, you lose it"
I like that
Cheers Charlie, I'll have a hipflask of something brutally awful on the bike ready for when I bump into you at some random event with other beardie buffoons on silly bikes.
Big absinthe fuelled snogs
Taz
Enjoy your next adventure Charlie. I'm sure you will be missed by STW but as you say "what if all goes right". Peace.
I had the pleasure of talking to Charlie at Mountain Mayhem, the first year it came back and he seemed like a thoroughly nice bloke. All the very best with your plans/non-plans.
All the best Charlie!
What about stickers? Your future must contains stickers! This sounds like a 'hold my beer and watch this!' moment 🙂
Still using, 16yrs later, amongst many things bought from you, my Timbuk2 large commuting Rastafarian bag that you sold my mum who bought it for my Christmas many years ago. She phoned you up, unsure what colour to get, and you asked her "is your son a conservative guy?"... 😆
Dammit, I want to retire....
Have fun, ride bikes, stay rad, think it, feel it, ****ing do it.
Love is the answer.
👍👍👍
Best of luck bumming about Charlie. Was a pleasure to chat with you a few years ago at Kendal Mountain Festival. May your merch be forever speedily dispatched.
It’s OK to take it easy and just please yourself
I've been doing that since I was a teenager....oh, wait..
Good luck Charlie, sounds fab. My only claim to fame is having sat on that sofa in the Swanage shop (I think with a basset hound?) While you printed off some local routes for me on an old fashioned piece of paper
Have a good one kiddo. See ya round.
Enjoy!
Life is too short not to make the most of it.
I have never regretted retiring, there are lots more interesting things to do than work.
Have fun.🙂
All the best for the future Charlie!
All the best wishes Charlie - good luck.
ps. the pet passport is another Brexit casualty ... don't get me started!
x
From Frizzell's to Arse Butter millionaire (in pennies?). Enjoy it all. Still have a 'toughen up princess' sticker on my town bike.
Good luck Charlie, have enjoyed your presence on here. Enjoy the biking retirement
Best wishes fella.
Great comments on here too - may help push me to push the button on less working days and more playing days. (By coincide it was exactly what ai was talking about with the fella in my garden wielding a chainsaw on a tree for me, 10 mins ago as I took him a brew).
Spooky !
All the best Charlie, you only live once so you may as well enjoy it 👍
My scars from the Clunker Classic still ache when it rains*.
Enjoy the next stage Charlie! I'm actually rather jealous. 🙂
*This is a complete lie. Everything healed up OK, although I can't speak for the other hospital visitors that year.
Good luck, Charlie. Early retirement is the business!
From a fatbiker with one-and-a-half Dorset Dirt Dashes (and a broken collar bone) under his belt thanks to you.
*Edit*
Somehow managed to post twice.
(Sort of) retired at 51 - mega! I was going to say make the most of it, but clearly that's the point.
I'm definitely having at the Yourkshire dirt dash, the others were always just a bit too drivey for me.
Have a good [s]retirement[/s] life doing shit that makes you smile Charlie, and keep on with your guerrilla marketing campaigns, never miss an opportunity to sticker bomb every ****ing thing possible.
A couple of pics from SSWC 2007 Aviemore
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Jules was impressed by her upgrade to Surly tits in her first experience of a single speed event
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Enjoy retirement Charlie!
I can just about remember the SSUK you ran as one of my favourites 😉
We definitely do need a final sticker run though, I'm almost out of 'Your 4x4 makes you look fat' stickers!!
Good luck you big hairy beast 💪 that was a grand day out you organised with Charlie Kelly and Joe Breeze 👍
@burchy1 Great idea. I don't have time to sort new stickers out in the closing days at the glorious and joyous Singletrack Towers... but I think a resurgence of stickers of wisdumb out of www.bumbutter.co.uk is a great idea.
I hope this is genuine retirement and he has not been charmed by Big Bum Butter industries to join corporate life.
Sorry to see you go, but glad you're off to do things your way. All the best.
...how's that work, I'm older than you and yet again you beat me to it
Carry on spreading the love 🙂
All the best Charlie. Was great chatting with you outside the Old Dungeon Ghyll pub in Great Langdale just after lock down.
All the best to you Charlie! Have fun
Enjoy spending more time with your bikes and hope they take you to lots of lovely places. All the best Charlie!
Enjoy yourself Charlie.
Our only interaction was while you were still down in Swanage and I was after some Gevenalle shifters which you graciously sorted for me by mixing and matching stock to put together only what I needed. A few years later I actually bought the now-missing-parts rest of the kit from bikemonger cheap as you'd made what was left useless to just about anyone else!
Good luck Charlie. I've dragged my Yorkshire-based riding mate down for a couple of Dorset Dirt Dashes.
I sense he'll be planning revenge and drag me north. Yorkshire coast sounds fabulous. Can't be worse than the twin terrors of Hambledon and Hod Hill. Can it?
Not my cup of tea but i wish you all the best for the future mate .
Have fun Charlie. I remember when you sent us a Pug to do beach sampling… fat bike riding while in work thanks to the Bikemonger… and the start of an out of work Surly/Salsa habit. Cheers. Hamish
Wow. An exciting decision. What a treat to give yourself.
Enjoy the bumming around.
Good on you Charlie....enjoy dude! 🙂
Sounds like a brilliant plan. Have enjoyed your contributions over the past few years - even have a Not Grumpy/Jumpy as my work mug to dispell the notion that I'm a grumpy sod (I'm not!!) Also the brotha dn cheese scone thing was pretty memorable 😀
Go surf those trails 👍
Good luck
Life beats work hands down in the balance of things.
I wish I could jack it all in. Enjoy!!!
Both sad & good at the same time... Enjoy!
Good luck!
I still have the Cross Check you sold me and some of your stickers on my bikes. I would happily buy more along the lines of “I brake for cake” and “Education is important, but getting rad is importanter”.
‘You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning’ sticker on my toolbox supplied with a beautifully engineered eccentric bottom bracket from charlie the bikemongers.
Enjoy the retirement, it’s bloody ace.
Good luck, please continue making Singletrack Salvation too! The smell is just so much better!