Personally, I was never a huge fan of Steve. I crossed paths with him many times over the years, and every time was like an exchange with an overly uptight middle school principal. He was an extraordinarily disciplined and committed athlete, while I on the other hand am not. However there was one time that we saw eye to eye, and luckily that instance was caught on film and ultimately used for a Control Tech ad.
In the above photo shot and prepared by Kelly Hobkirk, what you see is Mr. Larsen grinding it out with a big smile on his face through the second 50 Yards of Hell event at the 1999 World Cup mountain bike race at Skyline Park in Napa California.
What the casual observer might not immediately notice is Ezra's forehead, Ben Jacques-Maynes, Stella Carey, Loudass and his bag of chips, and myself in mid-freakout behind him, creating a disturbance. Of course the ad implies that the joy spread across Steve's face is due to the fact that he has such a deep love for riding his bike, which of course he did, but what we who were there know to be fact is that laid out before me on the ground was the centerfold of that month's issue of Barely Legal.

It was then that I decided that Steve wasn't such a bad guy after all.. Even if he never let me know directly, that smile tells me that all of his uppity antics, and puffed-out-chest posturing were just for show, and deep down in that finely tuned body beat the heart of a derelict.

Of course there was another time at the Sea Otter when we were watching the pros warm up for the short track event and Loudass called me a dumb honky. Steve actually turned around and came right up to us, fists clinched and said "what did you say to me!?" and Loudass said “I wasn’t talking to you, but I suppose that the term applies anyway....”
We all had a little stare down, and he eventually remembered that he was supposed to be racing bicycles and turned to get back to his business at hand.

Moments later we nicknamed JMac 'Mexican J', which is funny cause he's Filipino.

Anyway, Godspeed Steve. Another few exchanges with us and you might just have ended up down here in the trench with all the other bottom feeders.

In other news, Aaron wrote in with a simple observation;

"You must get this all the time."

You have no idea..

Ryan from The Bike Bloc also wrote in with a correction on the location of their Memorial Day Massacre;

Take note, cause there is nothing more embarrassing than showing up to play bike polo in a place where there is no one else to play bike polo with.

Unless of course you forgot to put on pants.
I suppose that would be more embarrassing.

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder how it is that 685 (who by the way, has a pretty sweet interview in the new issue of Fixed Magazine. Page 36, dont 'cha know?) goes about avoiding the bummer life?
Well wonder no more, cause he sent a shot to us of himself doing just that:

He obviously is a pro.

Well, folks.. I'm gonna cut this one a bit short because the weekend is calling. The coming days are going to find Skinny Bee, Casey, Aaron, Friendly Paul, Loudass and myself engaging in a ridiculous(ly long) off road adventure, the outcome of which will most assuredly be engaging.

Thousands of feet of climbing, and an estimated six to eight hours in the saddle.

Loudass doesn't stand a chance.

I'll catch you all again Wednesday the 27th.