On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Thomas during week 3 of the 2010 Low-Key Hillclimbs (Judy Colwell photo) I was really shattered, yet not surprised, to read of Thomas Novikoff's death . Dead from cancer at only 29. I'd last seen Thomas on Mount Hamilton at the final Low-Key Hillclimb . He was looking thin and pale. He told me, in a forced-cheery voice which seemed to hide a deep depression, even fear, that his cancer was back. It was in his liver, he said. The Whipple procedure he'd received the preceding November hadn't worked as hoped. He'd wanted to climb, but instead was going to volunteer. The stomach pain was too great, he told me. Every time he rode hard his breathing caused too much pain. I was shocked. What do I say to that? Thomas had been riding the Low-Keys since 2007, first with Team Cambio, and later Webcor/Alto Velo. I was to later learn he'd finished third in the Race to the Sun , up mighty Haleakela, just 15 months before, and finished a very close second in...