Remembering a friend.

The new sign at the top of Lairds Nose.

A lot folks did not know Leighton Shank. But if you have been involved in the local bike community, then he probably touched your life with out you knowing. Leighton was the Shenandoah Mountain Bike Club's (SMBC) computer guy  in the early 2000's, when finding a cyclist and a knowledgeable computer person was not so easy. This was prior to the SMBC and Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Club forming today's Shenandoah Valley Bicycle Coalition (SVBC). He create the logo for the Tour de Burg  and the website for SMBC, along with many other great local bike touches. At the time Leighton worked at SOS advertising, using his job connections to bring fun logo products to cycling community. Many of the older Tour de Burg and Festival items (tee shirts, hats, etc) came from late night session at SOS advertising.

One of the best views around!

In the early 2000's, when we started running with trail work Thursdays at Massanutten, Leighton was always making sure he got off work early so he could make it to the nut. He loved drinking his post trail work Yuegling Larger and Mountain Dew as much, if not more, than building the trails. It was during these post  trail work hang out times, on the tail gate of big red, that I got to know Leighton.

When Leighton left the Valley and moved back to hometown of Richmond he continued to stay connected to the bike scene. He was always a quick phone call or email away to help with computer needs or friendly advice.  Last year when a job opportunity opened for Leighton at JMU he made his way back to the Valley, this time with wife and son in tow. It did not take long for Leighton to find his usual trail work tool and head back to the nut on Thursday nights.  He also picked up where her left off and immediately devoted hours behind the computer scene making the back end of SVBC run smoothly.

The shot glass for Tour de Burg carbombs!

On October 10th Leighton passed away and left a big hole in many hearts and big hole in the SVBC community.  The last Thursday trail work before he passed away we spent a beautiful evening building what has become Leighton's Overlook, I encourage you to take ride or a hike and check out one of the best overlooks around. Maybe give a shout out to Leighton, I think he will hear you!

Here is a Dew & Yuegling for you my friend.
Your missed by many!

Your friend,
Thomas.