I moved to Bend in 1996. I remember sitting on the floor in my shithole rental on one of my first days in town talking on the phone with a friend of mine back in Tallahassee. He told me to look in the phone book for Steve Larsen. Sure enough, Steve was in there. My friend was so excited for me to be living in such a cool place.

Being a small town, we were bound to cross paths, and we did. We had a few mutual friends, and I got to ride with him once in a while (when I was at my fittest and he was going slow). He was always nice to me and over the years would always stop and say 'hi' whenever we would see each other. He would come out for our FireCracker ride, Thrilla Cross Races, and Chainbreaker. In recent years, I'd see him a lot on my morning ride out at Phil's - he'd be starting his run as I was finishing my ride. MeanT and I just ran in to him last Wednesday morning on Kent's.

I found out last night that he had collapsed on a training run with a bunch of our friends and passed away. He was only a year older than me. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife and family.