Paying our respects to the two wheeled partners we’ve loved and hated, celebrated and criticized
This goes out to the ones we’ve left behind. The ones we’ve let go. The ones that were taken from us, sometimes too soon. The ones we sent to better places, to be loved by people that were better for them than we could be, anymore. 
This one goes out to the first one. The latest one. And to all of the ones in between.
Yep.
This is for all of the two wheeled partners we’ve loved and hated, celebrated and criticized…
We will never forget them.
Even at our most mismatched madness of buying a bike two sizes too large, with 4 inches of travel more than we need, we have to admit there was at least SOMEthing there. Otherwise we wouldn’t have stuck with it for the number of rides that it took us to realize … that it just wasn’t the one for us.
We wouldn’t have suffered a season full of judgement and advice from our riding partners who just didn’t understand what it was that we saw in this obviously doomed relationship.
Perhaps we took a chance – we dipped our cleated shoes into the tempting dirt of a cycling discipline foreign to us; we fell in love with the idea of chance and of change.
And sometimes, that led us to the love of our lives.
Other times, we realized that perhaps we are more creatures of comfort and familiarity … (And that maybe cyclo-cross wasn’t for us, after-all.)
This one goes out to all of the memories, the learning experiences, the painful crashes and the intoxicatingly sweet memories of the perfect flow on the perfect trail.
To the lessons learned, the components broken and flesh bruised, the techniques we were taught from one that we carried on to the next.
This is for your first bike. This is for all of the bikes that have led you to who, where, and what you are as a rider, now.
This is for you, and for your love of all of the bicycles you have shared your life with.
So pour one out for the homies.
May you never forget any one of them.
Fat Tire Tuesday columnist Sarah Hansing has been slinging wrenches as a pro bike mechanic for 15 years (with the exception of a one year stint working for Trek Bicycles in Wisconsin.) Epicenter Cycling scooped her up as their lead mechanic and the shop’s crew plans to keep her forever. Sarah loves riding singletrack, wrenching on bikes, and hanging out with her jerk-face but adorable cat Harlan. (Who is a jerk.)
