One more old friend gone

I was 15 years old, and it was the summer of 1991 when I first laid eyes on it. After two years of riding an old Ross mountain bike, I finally had saved enough money for a new one. Even then, I could only afford it through some clever wheeling-and-dealing of a cop that had connections all through the bike industry that worked with my father. For '91, that GT Tequesta was one of the most advanced bikes out there. It had top-of the line Suntour components, thumb-shifters, Index-shifting (brand new to the scene), and the newest sensation in brakes at the time...straight-pull canti's. (although it still had a U-brake on the back) I was amazed at how fast, slick, and advanced this bike was,compared to everything I had ever ridden before. All of my riding/surfer buddy's were jealous, and people would stop me for a little demonstration of index-shifting on a fairly regular basis. I loved that bike, spent hours every week keeping the mud off, and that beautiful blue and white cirrus-stratus cloud scheme paint job shining. Starting when I was seventeen, I would spend a couple of weeks every summer driving across country, riding every trail I could find. I rode that GT in almost every state in the lower 48, Mexico, Canada, even Asia for a couple of weeks. During high school I averaged at least 100 miles a week. I raced it a few times in Southern-California, and made a couple podium finishes. I remember the scepticism everyone had about aluminum bikes. One guy in particular used to say, "Yeah, that stuff's fine for wrapping a sandwhich in, but don't make my bike out of it!" I was sitting on that bike the first time I saw suspension fork, and remember laughing with my friends about what a pussy that guy must have been for needing a shock on his bike. Really, a shock?!?! Grandma's need shocks! When I turned 18, I moved to Wyoming and quickly discovered that being in good shape for sea-level in no way meant that I was in good shape for serious high altitude trail running, but I trained on that bike as much as I could. My first two years of college put the pressure on, and between classes, drinking and girls, I quickly realized that I hadn't riden it in two years. A couple of years ago I started riding again, but realized that my trusty steed was severly outdated. Aluminum was now the norm for most mountain bikes, Suntour had gone under, clip-less pedals were common, V-brakes were new,

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