Riding away

The past two days have been surreal. After having begged off of happy hour with my colleagues and their non-work friends for many years, I finally threw in last night. Unfortunately, it was to attend a wake for another mutual friend's untimely passing. A pint of his favorite stout was placed by his urn, and his friends and family shared stories about his life. There was some crying, but there was even more laughing - just as it should have been. This afternoon, I helped spread his ashes. Given that he was a mountain biker, I got on my own mountain bike, zipped down a hill, and cut a portion of his remains loose over a couple hundred yards of a local trail network he'd ridden many times.



It felt a bit strange to have done these things. The fact is that I hadn't spoken to him in the year since he'd retired from our work. He kept going to the bar with the gang, but I was never there. In the past, we'd talked at length about cycling and shared a lot of laughs during work. We ran into one another now and then away from the office - once at a trail and a few times at a bike shop or the bike swap meet - but we certainly never met up on purpose.

On the other hand, he had an enduring influence on my life. I was complaining about my sore back and he said I needed to start lifting weights and working out. I followed his advice, and am still with it 11 years later. He was even more of a Clydesdale than I am, so his recommendations for bombproof bike parts were taken seriously. In turn, I gave him crap about sticking with 26"-wheeled bikes as 29ers, then 27.5ers took over. I picked him up at the hospital once; he'd had surgery to repair his broken (while biking, of course) wrist.

His death was tragic and entirely unanticipated. I felt that being there to celebrate his life and to help lay his remains to rest in a place he loved was the least I could do for his grieving family and friends.

Take care, Mark.