MOBILITY IS FREEDOM

MOBILITY IS FREEDOM

Bicycles to Broncos: How Movement Built My Life

Every freedom I’ve ever had in my life came with wheels.

Maybe that sounds strange. Maybe it sounds simple. But if I look back over every decade, every transition, every escape, every rebirth, every moment where I broke away from something that was crushing me — mobility was always the thing that made it possible.

My first taste of freedom wasn’t philosophical.

It wasn’t spiritual.

It wasn’t political.

It was a bicycle.

I must’ve been eight or nine, riding that BMX bike through Dallas like it was a ticket to another world. I’d disappear for hours. My mom had no clue just how far I’d go — down drainage ditches, under highways, through empty lots, across neighborhoods where no kid that age should’ve been alone. But that bike was the first thing that let me move on my own terms. It was the first tool that didn’t confine me. It expanded my world. It gave me distance, speed, and the thrill of going somewhere nobody expected me to be.

Then Louisiana added its own flavor to mobility.

Out there, movement meant dirt roads, sugar cane fields, bayous, backroads that twisted forever. I’d ride different bikes there — slower ones, older ones — but the freedom was the same. Two worlds, two lives, and a set of wheels connecting them.

Mobility came before philosophy for me.

Before the thinking, before the rebellion, before the distrust of society, before the collapse — mobility taught me what freedom felt like long before I understood why it mattered.

Then came engines.

ATVs. Go-karts. Dirt bikes. Shifter karts. Motorcycles.

Anything that moved fast enough to outrun whatever was holding me in place.

People sometimes look at motorcycles and see danger. I look at them and see possibility. I see the closest thing to flight that a man can buy without wings. My early motorcycles were my gateway into a world I couldn’t reach any other way. I couldn’t afford the Ferraris or Corvettes I dreamed of — but I could afford a used bike. And that was enough.

That was when mobility turned into passion.

And passion turned into skill.

And skill turned into a career.

I worked my way up through bikes the same way I worked my way up through life — one upgrade at a time. Honda XR100. Kawasaki KX85. Go-karts. Aprilias. Ducatis. Race bikes. Road bikes. Streetfighters. Machines that bucked, machines that flew, machines that changed my life.

Movement wasn’t just something I did.

It was becoming who I was.

And then came the vehicles that shaped whole chapters of my life.

My first Bronco II.

A Jeep Wrangler.

Old Ford trucks.

The vans.

And later — the Tacoma.

It’s funny, because if you listen to society, they’ll tell you a Bronco II is an outdated beater, a relic, a joke. But that little Ford gave me more freedom than any luxury car I’ve ever seen. I could fix it myself. Parts were cheap. It didn’t need permission. It didn’t need complicated electronics or sensors or software. That Bronco II was a machine that said, “If you can turn a wrench, you can go anywhere.”

And that is freedom.

When I bought my Tacoma — a TRD supercharged, Camberg off-road, Fox suspension, overlanded beast — I didn’t realize I was buying the ship that would carry me into the next phase of my life. I lived in that truck for three years. Pulled my little black trailer. Crossed states. Climbed mountains. Slept in forests. Hid in the snow. Chased rivers. Survived storms. That truck wasn’t a vehicle. It was a home. A companion. A lifeline. A way out when I needed it — and I needed it more than I admitted.

Mobility has always been my escape.

My protection.

My rebirth.

My independence.

People underestimate this. They think freedom is about politics or money or opportunity.

But freedom — real freedom — is movement.

If you can move when you want to move, you’re free.

If you can leave when something feels wrong, you’re free.

If you have the skills and tools to take yourself out of a bad situation, you’re free.

If you can pivot, travel, explore, relocate, adapt — you’re living.

Movement is life.

Stagnation is death.

When society traps people, it traps them by immobilizing them.

Debt immobilizes them.

Mortgages immobilize them.

Jobs immobilize them.

Schedules immobilize them.

Fear immobilizes them.

Comfort immobilizes them.

People think they’re stuck because they lack motivation.

Most of the time, they’re stuck because they lack mobility.

I’ve learned this the hard way, over and over:

A man who can move is impossible to control.

A man who can’t move is already owned.

And here’s the truth that ties it all together:

Mobility isn’t about the vehicle.

It’s about capability.

A bicycle can set you free.

A $500 motorcycle can change your life.

An old Ford can outlast the newest, fanciest, most expensive modern SUV.

An electric bike can slip through the cracks of laws, registration, regulation, and all the nonsense that society tries to place on movement.

It’s all mobility.

All freedom.

All Unencumbered.

People talk about minimalism like it’s about having fewer items.

But real minimalism is mobility.

It’s the ability to move without dragging a universe of junk behind you.

If you can move — truly move — you can survive anything.

When I live nomadically — whether in a van, a truck, or pulling a trailer — I don’t feel deprived. I feel alive. I feel capable. I feel sovereign. I feel like no one has their hands on me. There’s no system that can stop me. No rule that can cage me. No structure that can collapse on top of me the way old structures once did.

Movement saved me.

Movement rebuilt me.

Movement birthed Unencumbered.

And it’s funny to think that the whole thing started with a BMX bike and a kid who wanted to see how far he could get before the streetlights turned on.

That’s still me.

I just have bigger wheels now.