Chris Writes.

You were so new, like a budding flower not yet bloomed, yet bursting with promise.  We gave you every chance we could, installing you with the best of adhesives and the tenderest of care as you were eased out of your cardboard womb and wrapped lovingly around a fancypants carbon rim.  Five layers of glue, each one applied by the finest of hands, and the caution of eggshells – and yet, it was not the glue which ultimately showed us the harshness of the world, or the fragility of your existence.  A rock, a simple thing, but at times sharp, and certainly sharp enough to tear a hole in your sidewall just as it tore a hole in our hearts.  If we had to do it over again, we would have done it all the same, and though it’s hard, we have come to accept that the 100 yards you rolled in your short life were simply all you had. We  know we will try again, and we hope to be blessed with another, but we will not love it more than you, nor will ever we think of it as replacing you. You’re with us forever, in a way, because we’ll always miss you. You had no name, but you cemented a place in our hearts.

Unnamed, 2010-2010

In lieu of flowers, we ask that you send donations to the Cyclocross Tubular Relief fund, which supports grieving racers in their darkest times of need.