I actually met Dan as a substitute teacher in grade 8 and 9 science, this would have been just before he went to Sweden I guess. As a BMX kid I thought it was way cool that one of my teachers was a famous mountain biker. Since his specialty was in physics, I really looked up to him. Of course, like a good little groupie, I told Dan this when we met him to do the walk on the Circus.
It's funny how it's all those little things that are lost over time.
I recall I think it was in the spring of 98 up at the yellow gate on Mtn Hwy waiting for my brother. Dan was grinding away on whatever his beast was at that time. Came upon some rider walking his bike up the hill. Said hi to the guy and said something along the lines of it being a great day to be out.
Another moment. winter of 99 with a shop ride from Vertical Mtn. Cold, wet, and cold. Came upon Dan filming with Digger at the old log shack seen in NSX 2. Dan's smiling under that great white Shoei lid going on about how great it is to be in the woods riding bikes.
Dan always seemed happy riding bikes and watching others ride.
Wonder how Dan feels about "flowy" trails being the in thing rather than the tech. stuff he built? Dude's definitely a legend [HTML_REMOVED] pioneer.
I recall talking about that once with him. He viewed it as every trail has flow, that each rider will experience how the trail flows differentely, and that you can't force it. I wasn't quite in the right mindset then to understand that back then.