The Story Behind the Name
OK, OK, now that I see my "title" has been changed to better reflect the meaning.
(I still like "The Librarian", coined by TheJuice.
)
WD40 has been around for years.
After all the build-up, it's really nothing special.
Somehow in high school, in the early '70's, we all started calling each other by our first and middle initials.
Mine are DW. (Not to be confused with Darrel Waltrip.
)
Somehow those initials got flipped to WD.
I guess it just rolled off the tongue better.
Well, if you know you're CB history, that's when it really took off (reference the early '70's) with all them "mother truckers".
Of course, all the buds had CB's in their vehicles, and we needed "handles". (The original definition for "handle" btw.
)
So, with me being called "doubaya dee" all the time,
I naturally attenuated to WD40 as my CB handle.
That's stayed with me ever since, and, right up to the point of needing an alias in my first NASCAR forum several years ago.
Whew, ready for Reverend Grip-Shift?
Well, it seems I got quite a few friends involved in Mountain Biking in the early stages of it's popularity boom.
Some had bikes, but had never experienced the true "single track mind".
We started riding around Sea-Tac Airport in some abandoned home sites.
There were a few hundred acres for the taking, and our own personal trails.
Naturally, we needed more time on our steeds, and started riding every Sunday together.
This became the era of The Church of the Knobby Tire, with me generally leading the pack.
Somehow, it turned out beautiful every one of those Sunday rides once we started referring to them as such.
(As you well know, the weather is not the driest in the great northwest.)
So, I was now referred to as The Reverend on those rides.
A couple years go by, and The Reverend decides to go fully suspended with all the latest titanium components.
His new steed comes fully equipped with the latest technology in shifters.
You guessed it, SRAM Grip Shifters.
The Reverend's title is now changed to Reverend Grip-Shift.
So, there ya have it!
It should be noted that, though I have taken the lead in getting friends off the double-track, and onto the single-track,
I have several folks to thank for doing the same with me.
Reference Gonz's
post and some of the names he mentioned there.
Hope this was worth the wait.