Happy Birthday, DM

The Dusty Musette is one year old this week. It was on a grey, early October day 12 months ago that Val offered up this found-graffiti image of a mini-rocket as emblem of the low-key launch of this blog. Our goals when we set out on this 3-man mission were modest: to offer an unpretentious buffet of considered, more-or-less literate commentary on our idea of cycling—without taking ourselves (or anything, really) too seriously. We hoped we might find a constellation of readers, start some conversations, provoke a few smiles, and celebrate, in our small way, our twin passions of reading and riding.

One year later, our blog has settled into a modest but steady orbit. A small but faithful cadre of readers drop by for some sustenance each week.  (I’m reminded of Stuart MacLean’s reassuring Vinyl Café motto: “We may not be big, but we’re small.”) Occasional visitors dip into the Musette from time to time too. Plus we’ve had our share of accidental guests—like, for instance, the thousands of Germans who, apparently, have been searching the interweb for “cyclist’s bulge” only to be brought, as if under false pretenses, to the Musette’s cyclist’s bugle instead.  (We hope you weren’t too disappointed, Deutschlanders. We’re proud of our manly bugles. )

They say that successful blogging is about much more than the writing; it’s about building a community around a shared interest. For me, this communal aspect is one of the things I like best about this venture. Of course, blogging, like cycling can be done solo. Happens all the time. But both activities are usually more fun when you’re part of group, sharing the work, spreading around the pain and pleasure, commiserating and cajoling. In a sense, the Musette is kind of a group ride (or group write); some readers, and even writers, may drop off the back for a piece, but the peleton has a way of gathering everyone back together into the fellowship of the chain ring.

A one-year anniversary like this can be seen at least two ways. It could be that the warranty on this particular mini-rocket is up; perhaps all manner of shit on this Sputnik will begin to fall apart, o-rings and ailerons, and it will plummet back to the ground in a poof of dust, its mission complete. 

However, I’m more optimistic. I prefer to look at our yearling blog as just starting to find its legs, now ready to shoot higher, to graduate from confident crawling to tentative small steps out into the big old world.

So to you, our readers—bulge-ists and bugle-ists alike—we say a hearty thanks for joining us this far on the ride. Let’s stick together and see where this road takes us.