A large part of the impetus for this weekend centers around the unveiling of a memorial plaque for a friend who was killed while cycling in Chicago by a drunk driver in April 2000. Bennett Jay Kryzsko was one of the kindest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He always had time for friends and family, and his laugh could cure all woes. Many things are said about those who have died, but I know that there is not a person who met Bennett that would not agree wholeheartedly with my description.

Unfortunately, I learned of his love for bicycles rather late. He showed up, unannounced at my office one summer day a few years ago. I heard the voice and popped my head up over my desk. Sure enough, it was Bennett. I immediately left work right then and there and went down to the lobby to check out his shiny Independent Fabrication mountain bike. Very cool, very drool-worthy. We tossed his bike on my rack, picked up my ride at home, and spent a few hours charging around the local State Park. He told me about his part time job at a local Chicago shop, his recent one-of-a-kind purchase of a vintage Bridgestone MB-Zip, and how he was really enjoying learning how to wrench on bikes. I thought the same thing we all do when we find someone who shares our passion - it's like kindred spirits bumping into one another.

Over the next couple of years, I only manged to see him when he came back for the holidays. We enjoyed our time, but never got to go riding again. One of the places I had hoped to drag him to was Medora, to ride the new Maah Daah Hey trail. So when I made my first trip out there, and rode the Bennett Creek Trail, the idea of a memorial there seemed like fate. There are parts of Bennett within each of his friends and family - I ride a certain spot on the local trails and I can see him in a standing uphill sprint, his sky-blue IF glinting in the sunlight of a hot summer day. I taste the chocolate-smoothness of a White Russian and it reminds me of the group of us friends stading in my kitchen on a crisp Christmas night, toasting each other and life. I hope that those of you who manage to be a part of the ceremony understand that Bennett is in the soil, the pines, the clay of the Badlands, and take a part of him back to wherever you go. He is certainly watching this and laughing that goofy donkey bray of a laugh. See, Ben, bikes DO bring folks together.