the GOT bike

 The title of my last post had me thinking of someone that my friend Mary Lynn and I knew. When anyone asks Mar and me how we know each other, our pat response is, "We have a dead friend in common." If you also knew Mike Patrick, you know we couldn't pay him a more appropriate honor than to say something so inappropriate. One of Mike's graces was the ability to say exactly the wrong thing while knowing how wrong it was. I first met Mike on the start line of the New England Series race at the Ludwig Farm in Ellington, CT in 1994. It was a big regional race with at least fifty riders lined up a couple rows deep fifty yards away from a fence opening that would allow for the width of two riders. It was going to be a fast start, and while I wasn't yet winning those races, after finishing second at the Mount Snow national earlier that summer, to some even younger kid named Floyd Landis, I felt reasonable taking a spot on the front row. Mike lined up next to me and start...