It's hard to say what typifies the spirit of the people who spend their days making a living in the streets of the nation's capital, and I mean that distinction, in the streets. Are we the urban outlaws they think we are, or are we all just riding down the same demons? I can say that I have met all kinds, from vein-stuffing weekend junkies to marine biologists on extended sabbaticals. I have spit with disgust at rookie track stars barreling blindly down the road in search of their father’s acceptance, and I have blinked back tears after watching the smoothest of the field slice through the traffic on "K" street like the hand of Moses. But there is a picture in my mind of a thoroughbred, a man who rode like the pioneer he was - with his hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, his radio bouncing in a holster at his hip, black-strapped panniers laced down and a red-tipped Winston pushing past his Lloyd Mosby beard. A man whose eyes danced with big-sky freedom most of us will only taste of. There are not many riders Dave McComb could not call rookie. In 1974 he was one of the first bike messengers on the streets of DC, and by 1996 he was a human encyclopedia of facts and faces, and he'd forgotten more sordid stories about this town than most of us will learn about. I will not forget his nicotine baritone straightening out my wheel from afar when I plumbed the airways for some mystery address. There is no question about Dave's contributions to our industry either, and I'm sure any thanks we give him here will be repeated manifold by people who will follow the trails he has blazed for twenty-two years, some of whom will never know his name.I don't know the full measure of freedom. I can't say what each person defines as their own idea of success, but I hope that each of us, somewhere along the many paths which we will cover in our own lives, might one day hold a slice of the ascending spirit that was the life of Dave McComb.