u/Fabulous-Signature-3

Seems like there have been a lot of naysayers predicting that Honda’s new baby EV would be a dud, destined to clog showrooms like the unloved Mazda MX-30 did.

It might have only bet on 150 units, but those 150 disappeared within hours, with a claimed 7,000 expressions of interest on the books.

Small and cool, known brand, not a cookie-cutter SUV… these are the elements that pushed it along IMO, not dollar-for-dollar comparos with the new crop of cheap EVs that have flooded the market.

Not sure if Honda is willing or able to take advantage, though. The 2020 E was an expensive flop, and - as it’s done numerous times in its history - Honda again folded like a cheap suit, winding back its future EV spend after blowing through billions.

It’s interesting that companies like Honda and Nissan never went on with promising early works; Honda made its first commercial EV way back in ‘99, while Nissan should have absolutely bunged the Leaf powertrain into any and every sub-large line it had on the books.

I’m not an EV acolyte or anything… just found it interesting that people were so willing to write the Super One off out of the gate.

Twenty-five years married, 35 years of friendship, ended brutally early thanks to stage iv metastatic breast cancer.

Looking after the medical shit was my (55m) job; she (57f) focused on living well and wilfully ignoring prognoses and hard numbers… and she did that so amazingly well.

After three years, though, her liver packed it in and the oncologists handed her off to palliative care, where she hung on for a few days in good spirits before slipping away peacefully, me and the kids keeping her company until the very end.

Our lives forever altered on a sunny winter Wednesday morning.

To say she was loved was an understatement; 200-plus people bid her a fun but teary farewell yesterday.

A few of her closest friends and I worked hard to give her the sendoff she deserved, and I’m pleased to say everyone seemed to appreciate it.

Her ashes showed up today in a nice gift bag, delivered to me in my driveway by a lovely old gentleman who wished me well before getting me to sign on his phone, the screen briefly showing the sig of the last person he’d delivered to.

So, aside from a few admin bits and pieces, that’s it. Our life together - awesome house, three great kids, her 30 years in the bellydance community, her amazing girl’s network, our future growing old - is done.

And I simply don’t have a single fuckin’ clue what to do now.

I’m all but retired, and if I’m being honest, I very much doubt I’ll ever work again now.

The kids are out of their teens and we get on great, but I want them to get out in the world and live their life, not hang around and watch out for their grumpy, grieving old man.

I’m already feeling that sense of isolation… almost like there’s a stigma because I’ve lost someone so significant. There were two big lunches after the event yesterday, for example, and we weren’t invited to either one.

We packed up the celebration and then just sat around at our house, eating leftover nachos in silence.

So many weird interactions at the celebration from well-meaning people who looked like they would rather be doing absolutely anything else, too, and soooo many people I didn’t know but I yet had still to offer them comfort and respond kindly to their platitudes.

No hate; us Westerners are just so shit at death stuff. But fuck, it’s tiring.

I’m a busted heap. Physically and mentally wrung out after three years on the cancer horror show with her, and two months straight in hospital as the four horsemen galloped on in, with me taking the heat of it for her. My choice, my job.

What now? Just… dunno. And I just know this is going to affect every single day of whatever time I’ve got left.

My thoughts go out to everyone going through this right now. What a fuckin’ shitshow.

Looking for a two- or three-bike square hitch mounted carrier, but things have sure changed since I last bought a GripSport rack!

Any recommendations/ones to avoid? Will carry either a pair of 29in duallies, and occasionally one dually/one gravel-style rig.

GripSport and Thule on the consideration list.