Ode to a Blue Bag

I am generally not one to be sentimental about things. Things are tools to be used for their useful life and then replaced as needed. This morning, I cleaned out my big blue Oakley duffel bag. It has served as gym bag, carry-on, travel, and race bag for well over a decade. It was the best and most versatile bag I have ever owned. It certainly excelled as a gym and athletic bag. I even wrote Oakley a note praising them for its versatility and suggesting they make future iterations with a yellow or white liner. Anything but black.

Why is it gym bag companies insist on black liners? Are they not aware that 90% or more of athletic and gym apparel and equipment is black? Have they not spent hours on end searching for some missing article only to later find it camouflaged in a corner of their black gym bag? Do they not care? Oh the humanity!

My note to Oakley received the expected polite response. “Thank you Mr. Githens. We’ll pass that idea along to our design team”. Shortly thereafter the 85L Oakley bag was discontinued. I guess they didn’t like my idea.

Replacement of “the blue bag” has been overdue for some time, but I’ve used it for so long that I hated the idea of changing my “system”. Everything had its place and I could put my hand on whatever I needed without even looking. In those inadvertent moments, when I accidentally put my padlock (or something) in the wrong place, I could spend 10 minutes tearing apart the bag searching for it or just assume I lost it. Knowing I couldn’t just buy a new version of the same bag had me putting off the inevitable. But, alas, the time has come.

This morning I sat on the floor with the blue Oakley bag in front of me, dissecting various pockets, and pouches of which it had plenty. I found old, unopened band-aids, rusty safety pins from bibs past, long-expired gels, and a couple corroded batteries. I also found cool race schwag I’d forgotten about. There was a snap on reflective arm band, a couple nice little “please don’t hit me” lights, and a specialty charging cable for a device that I thought I had lost. I had also collected quite a bit of trash that “I’ll put in here for now and throw away later”.

Ultimately, I got the big blue bag emptied out and, despite my lack of attachment to things, lingered for a moment before rolling it up and dropping it in the trash can. The blue Oakley bag has seen me through eight half-ironman triathlons, one full Ironman, two Bostons marathons, and countless other races. It has survived thousands of miles of travel and dozens of adventures. It is likely one of the most useful tools I have ever owned.

But it is time to say goodbye. The zippers are all non-functional or torn. The lining is mostly missing. It is dirty and the smell from years of sweaty workout gear is . . . . BAD. If Oakley still made their 85L duffel bag, I’d have bought another in a flash. I wish I bought a spare years ago. Since they don’t, after much scouring of the internet, I found a similar bag from Brubaker. I’ll have to develop a new system, but hopefully it has as many adventure ahead as the Oakley.

Goodbye blue bag! And thanks!