Bender

Cancer is a son of a bitch.

Rob Bender was a cool guy. I don't know him a tenth as well as a bunch of other people who could elaborate on it a lot more than i can. Every time he came into the shop he was in a good mood, positive in general, and not a sawed off "bike guy" type, which isn't an easy feat for somebody who was an accomplished cyclist.

My favorite (and only real for that matter) Rob Bender story is, one time at a local organized dirt crit, there were some young guns who were new to the area, driving the front of the race. For the duration of the race, they were controlling the front like a road crit, rob just sat back and waited. Everybody who was watching or racing was fairly impressed by these new guys skill and didn't know what to think, except Rob. I'd imagine he was probably thinking, "I'm gonna show these guys how a race is won in about 2 minutes". About a minute and 59 seconds later, coming into the finish of the last lap, Bender powered around them and won. Man, were these dude's pissed. The look on Bender's face was classic. It was just like "Well, you win some and you lose some fellas, unless your me, then you lose til it counts, at which point you win..." it was like a half smug half disappointed that they thought it would be that easy look. It was awesome.

Cancer took Rob from the world. It's cliche to say, but he was too young to die. He'll be missed.