The Nature of HebdonHammers
Hello There; it’s been a while.
This post is about the very nature of HebdonHammers, and how it’s changing.
The Nature of Hebdon Hammers
I want to start by thanking everyone who has visited, read this blog, commented, or submitted questions over the years. If I’m honest, the community response to what I’ve written has far exceeded my expectations, and I am very grateful for that. The HebdonHammers blog has always been a passion project. I began the blog because frankly, I have opinions about stuff. My friends and acquaintances had been asking me for advice about boats for a while; so I decided to start writing about the racing shells that I rowed in, and what I thought about them. As a designer, I’m always interested in the ideas and engineering that have gone into the objects we use. So, writing long-format blog posts about these boats, old and new, made sense to me. It struck me that, despite the price of these boats reaching to the thousands of dollars, there was essentially zero reviews or coverage about them. The HebdonHammers blog was a way to fill that void, and hopefully help some folks out on making more informed purchase decisions about them.
What Happened
Over the last few years, I have seen many fundamental life changes that have altered the very bedrock of how I live. I will not go into detail for some of those changes, as it’s personal, and this is the internet. What I will talk about, however, is burnout. For years my life has been close to 100% rowing, from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to sleep. I’ve enjoyed pursuing this kind of lifestyle: rowing, coaching, repairing equipment, designing graphics for rowers, and writing about boats. I’ve never lost interest in any of it, to this day. What has changed is my ability to continue to push to make this lifestyle possible. Fundamentally, it comes down to money. Very few people in the world of rowing are able to “make it” without having some other side gig, or by keeping rowing on the back burner and doing something else to make money. I am no exception to this; while I am forever grateful for the conditions that allowed me to pursue rowing as life for as long as I did, those conditions have changed. Pushing to make that lifestyle work eventually blew up, and the last couple years have been spent putting pieces of my life back together again.
The Blog is Changing
A result of what I’ve written about above is that I have changed geographic location to Denver, Colorado. There is a rowing club in the area, but the distance from where I live is too far to make a daily trip to the lake tenable. As a result, rowing has been placed on the back burner, although it’ll probably return eventually.
None of the posts are being removed, and in fact I have one more I’ve been sitting on that I will be publishing soon; But I will not be publishing boat reviews for a while. I’m going to broaden my approach to reviews, and cover my different athletic interests. At the moment, I’ve gone down the cycling rabbit hole, as there’s an excellent scene in my local area for everything with two wheels. I also have a few thought pieces I’ve sketched out and may eventually publish.
Final Thoughts
I appreciate everyone for reading, and I look forward to posting about whatever new paths I follow here at HebdonHammers. If you have thoughts or comments, please feel free to leave them below. If you’ve followed HebdonHammers on Instagram, I’ll begin posting on there with more regularity soon; It just won’t look the same as it used to. Look forward to the next post!
