I sold Kent's DeRosa yesterday. It was not easy. I made sure this bike worked for Kent, I was there for its first ride and its last with Kent. He was always so happy after I would get it tuned for him and it worked like a De Rosa should. I was happy to. I fixed Kent's bikes, it was the very least I could do.
This story is a long one so I am going to take a few blogs to tell it.
I first met Kent in the early 80s. He came in Sunnyside for some bike work and we became friends. Not fast good friends but friends. He was semi retired and really wanted to see how fast a man in his late 40s could ski. He was a lot faster than I was0. Things happened and he went back to work full time. He was a government contractor. I really didn't see him for a few years. I know he was busy traveling and working. Sometime in the 90s he decided to get back into cycling and we started to see him more, doing rides together etc. About the same time I had decided to learn Spanish.
He came in just before Thanksgiving in 1995 and asked if I knew where in Italy he could ride. Though I had never been to southern Europe, I had read a lot and told Kent he would need to go to Southern Spain for a chance at good weather in November, and then jokingly I said he should take me along so I could speak Spanish and fix his bike. The next day I had a ticket to Madrid and instructions to bring his bike (along with mine) and I would meet him in Madrid (he would fly from Italy after his business). These are a couple of photos from that trip. I will resume the story in my next blog, as I said it is a long tale.
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