u/Earl_the_Greatmuffin

Wife and I are planning a trip up north. We are from Wisconsin but never ridden on the CAMBA trails before. Curious if anybody enjoyed them?

I’m not sure if anyone else has been in this position, but I didn’t grow up with money. I worked in a mine to pay for my college degrees. My wife, on the other hand, comes from a family that owns multiple rental units and sits on several abandoned properties worth over $18 million. I didn’t even know they had that level of wealth until it came up casually during a Thanksgiving dinner which was an odd topic to begin with.

What I still cannot understand is how or why they left their only daughter with $150,000 in student debt that we are now both working extremely hard to pay off. My own loans are gone I paid off roughly $60,000 within two years during the forbearance period. I also came into the marriage with my car fully paid off, and when my wife was still driving her family’s old 2001 hand‑me‑down a car with a rusted roof that leaked water inside her father wanted to charge us $5,000 just to keep it. The car was on its last legs, so instead of sinking money into it, I paid for her newer, reliable car in cash so she could have something safe and functional.

On top of that, we rent from her parents and they don’t fix anything. We have black mold in the basement that her father keeps saying he’ll “get to,” but never does. The only reason we stay is because of the family discount, but even with that, it’s exhausting to live in a place where basic issues go ignored.

Recently, my wife told her parents that while my loans are paid off, we’re still struggling to tackle hers. She tried explaining how difficult it actually is to pay down student loans today and that it’s nowhere near as simple as they think. Her father responded by giving her financial advice: he told her to stop contributing to our Roth IRA and 401(k), quoting Dave Ramsey. It was genuinely terrible advice. I explained to her that doing that would be reckless because (1) we would lose 5–10 years of compounding, and (2) her employer doesn’t offer a retirement plan or contribute anything, so we have to fund her retirement entirely on our own. We’ve been balancing paying down the highest‑interest loans while still contributing to retirement because that’s the only sustainable long‑term approach.

My wife also mentioned that we’re exhausted from renting from her parents while watching every one of their other children purchase homes homes that were given to them. Meanwhile, her parents drive a six‑figure luxury vehicle without a second thought. And somehow, despite all of this, they think we’re irresponsible with money. They assumed we had car payments, credit card debt, and that I still had student loans. My wife told them that both cars are paid off, my loans are paid off, and we’ve never carried credit card debt. They were completely speechless.

Her father then asked what the highest interest rate was. When my wife said 6%, he brushed it off as “not bad at all.” That might be true if the balance weren’t so high, but one private loan alone is $70,000 at 6%, and she has two more at $20,000 each at the same rate, with the rest around 4%. It adds up quickly.

We’ve been paying weekly about $550 a week toward her federal loans, $900 a month toward the private loans, plus whatever I bring in from my second job, usually another $400–$500, which also goes toward the federal loans. Because of this, we’ve paused saving for a home and starting a family so we can focus on paying down the debt.

What frustrates me most is that whenever my wife brings up our loans to her family, nothing they say is helpful. It always turns into outdated comparisons or dismissive comments about how things were “back in their day.” It’s exhausting, and it makes an already difficult situation even harder. After the last conversation, I told my wife that she needs to stop discussing our loans with her family altogether, because it never leads anywhere productive and only adds more stress to our lives. She also forked out about $25k of her own money she had saved for college at the time about 6 years ago, and her family asked her for the money to pay for parts of her brothers wedding, and promised to pay her back before the start of school. Only took 4 years for them to give them the money back. In which she had to then take out private loans to pay for school that year to cover the costs. So I am sure you can see why I am having issues with this whole situation.

My wife and I want to start recording our rides and trips and I am curious as to what type of Cameras you guys are using and are you mounting them to the bikes or on your person?

I’m 30 years old, and at this point I’ve accepted that I probably won’t own a home until I’m 40. I already paid off $60k of my own student loans by working my 9 to 5 and flipping stuff on eBay at night. Now I’m working on my wife’s debt. She has about $117k, and we’ve managed to knock her biggest federal loan from $20k down to $12k in five months. That’s from both of us working full time and me hustling on eBay every spare minute.

I’m averaging about an extra thousand a month reselling. And honestly, it’s ridiculous that I even had to turn to reselling because my job hasn’t given me a raise in almost five years. I’ve been applying everywhere, but the job market is a disaster. I work fully remote, so since they don’t pay me enough, I literally do both jobs at the same time.

Meanwhile, we’re renting from my in‑laws, who own sixteen properties. One is an abandoned lake house worth around $1.7 million. Another is a lake property with an abandoned cottage. And then there’s my father‑in‑law’s childhood home down the road, which they keep as a weird boomer time capsule with stuff from the 50s and 60s still sitting inside. And the kicker is they’ve made it very clear that none of these properties will ever go to anyone. Everything will be liquidated when they retire. No help, no passing anything down, nothing.

So here we are, grinding overtime, juggling two full‑time jobs, reselling on eBay, and looking for a third part‑time gig because this market is beyond cooked. My wife and I did everything we were told to do. We followed the path that was supposed to lead to stability. Instead, we’re drowning in debt, stuck in a broken job market, watching AI replace people, and fighting for scraps just to stay afloat.

Still, paying off $60k and knocking out almost another $20k feels good. But I’m exhausted. This is what “doing everything right” looks like in America.

Took my bike out for my first actual trail ride today and holy hell… why did nobody tell me how fun this is? I have been a gravel and road guy forever so this was my first real XC trail session and it felt like discovering a whole new sport. Absolute blast. Cherry officially popped.

I am running a carbon Roval seatpost right now. Nothing wrong with it, I actually love it, but after today I am definitely thinking about switching to a dropper. I damn near split my testicles into four pieces smashing through some rock gardens. That was a spiritual experience I did not sign up for.

Also talked to a guy out there riding an Epic 9 he said cost like ten grand. It’s a really sick bike was excited to see one in person. The thing is absolutely insane. But seriously… how are some people not terrified of beating up a carbon bike on these trails? I am out here flinching at every rock like it is a personal attack and this dude is just sending it like he is sponsored by Specialized and God.

And on that note, does anybody have dropper post recommendations? I thought about going AXS so I can easily swap back and fourth from Rigid to Dropper.

I had an interview with DaVita and for the first time in my entire career, I actually told a hiring manager to go fuck themselves.

It started with the job posting saying the role was remote. Cool. Great. That is literally the only reason I applied. I get on the call and a few minutes in they casually drop, “This role is actually out of state. You would need to relocate.”

So I asked, “Are you offering relocation assistance?”

They said, “No. Only higher level executives get that.”

I just sat there for a second like… you have got to be kidding me. You advertise a remote job, then spring a relocation on people, and you are not even covering the move. They really expect workers to eat thousands of dollars in moving costs just to show up and be grateful for it. They give nothing and expect everything.

And then the interview somehow got worse.

They start walking me through their process. Not one interview. Not two. Eight. Eight rounds. And two of those rounds were unpaid “projects” where I would be solving an actual business problem and then presenting my work to their leadership.

For free.

At that point I said, “Sure, I can do that. My consulting rate is three hundred dollars an hour. Send over the scope and I will invoice you.”

That is when the hiring manager completely lost it. They went straight into a lecture about how “your lazy generation never wants to work” and how I should be grateful for the chance to “prove myself.”

I laughed right in the middle of their speech.

I told them, “People are not refusing to work. We are refusing to be exploited. You are asking candidates to do unpaid labor on real company problems, and most of them will not even get a rejection email. That is not proving yourself. That is free consulting. Plus you’re probably going to just steal my work and ghost me.”

And that was it for me. They want eight interviews, two unpaid projects, a presentation, and a cross country move all on my dime. I told them their entire process is fucking garbage, wished them luck finding someone willing to bankroll their own exploitation, and before ending the call and said, “Oh by the way, Go fuck yourself fot wasting my time.”

Should I be worried as a reseller about losing my income?

Honestly, Saint Norbert College talks a big game about community and values, but the way accessibility plays out there feels completely out of sync with what they preach. From the outside, it looks like a place that prides itself on being welcoming. But once you actually need accommodations, the whole vibe changes.

It feels like accessibility is something they deal with only when they’re forced to, not something they build into the way the school operates. You end up doing way more work than you should just to get basic support. And it’s exhausting. You shouldn’t have to constantly remind people, chase down answers, or manage the logistics of your own accommodations like it’s a part‑time job.

What makes it worse is the culture of “niceness” the school leans on. It’s the kind of place where raising a concern gets you labeled as the problem because you’re disrupting the warm, fuzzy image they’re trying to maintain. That’s not community that’s pressure to stay quiet so no one has to feel uncomfortable.

And the inconsistency is wild. Some things get handled well, others fall apart, and there’s no real sense of a system behind any of it. It’s all reactive. It depends on who you talk to, what day it is, and how much energy you have left to push for what you need. That shouldn’t be the norm at a college that charges what it charges and markets itself the way it does.

The part that sticks with me is the emotional toll. When you have to fight for access over and over, it sends a message even if no one says it out loud — that your needs are secondary. That you’re only included as long as you don’t make things too complicated. And that’s a pretty brutal thing to feel from a place that claims to be built on dignity and respect.

I seriously don’t know how anyone is finding a job. The requirements to even land a job are insane. 1 interview with a recruiter, another with the hiring manager, another with the team, a case study, and then maybe 5 more after that. Like what the actual Fuck. 10 years ago I applied and maybe landed a job in two to three weeks. Now it’s like they want me to eat their assholes and get down on all fours and start sucking them off. Like this is a damn joke.

So I am trying to figure out what type of XC bike or Trail bike to get for this event. I would do it on my gravel bike but that just sounds brutally painful. I was looking at a few options Epic 9….Salsa Spearfish….Orbea Oiz…Orbea Alma….and the BC40 but rumors have it that a new BC40 may be coming out soon. I really like the Epic 9 and I am very curious on if it would make a good bike packing bike. I think the Salsa Spearfish is made with this event in mind too?

I am going to be doing a marathon event and was curious if trail bikes are a good choice. How is this different between a xc bike.

It looks like the chisel has been discontinued. I’m not sure if they’re gonna be making a new model, but I really love hardtails. Do you guys think that specialize will make an updated hardtail chisel

I’m exhausted, and I know a lot of people my age feel the same way. I paid off my student loans in about five years without owing Uncle Sam a dime. I did it aggressively so that when payments restarted, we could focus on my wife’s loans. I know I am lucky and not many people can do so.

My wife told my in‑laws that I’m officially student‑debt‑free, and their response was… less than supportive. Meanwhile, her payments are brutal we’re paying about $3,000 a month between her private and federal loans. She works overtime. I work full‑time and run a reselling business on the side just to keep up to make extra payments

And yet my in‑laws still ask why, at age 30, why we don’t have our first home. They love to remind us that “back in their day” they paid off their loans in two years and bought six rental properties I think now they have a total of 15 rental properties. That version of the American Dream simply doesn’t exist anymore, and hearing those comparisons while we’re doing everything we can is honestly exhausting.

Maybe one day we will see relief if it’s not us….I hope our children and grandchildren have it better. Just because one generation had it rough does not mean that is how it should be.