Grown Up Sunday

If anyone’s ever told you to grow up, they probably weren’t being very nice, and you probably didn’t want to hear it.

- Walter Pieringer

When I think of grown ups, I think of unhappy middle-aged men in cheap suits, chained to a desk and a mortgage, trying to forget crushed dreams and a life they never wanted but had to settle for. Strangely, I’m pretty sure that’s who the people telling you to grow up are thinking of, too, and I don’t know why anyone would wish that upon anyone. Misery loves company, I guess. 

Still, take it from a 35-year-old, there are a lot of awesome things about growing up. New privileges like driving and getting into bars and freedom from parental control open up whole new worlds of excitement and opportunity. But really, the coolest part about growing up is you get better at things. As Erik wisely puts it in his story later in this article, “We can always become better versions of ourselves.” Over the summer of 2015, I drove the Sunday Sprinter van from Texas to California to Cape Cod, back to California and then back to Texas, transporting Sunday team riders in different phases across the country on a mission to film for Grow Up. It was a grueling schedule of riding and driving and riding and driving. The dudes were beat to shit; exhausted from weeks on the road, killing themselves on their bikes every day, and sleeping in a different hotel room almost every night. And they were just down. They were down for every bit of it, whatever it took to make our video everything it could be.