Remembering a friend that's gone: Lear Miller

Lear Miller will be in Seattle next weekend, and not a day too soon, as he will be just in time for the funeral service being held in his memory.

TEAM ROBOT wants to announce the upcoming funeral service of bike rider Lear David Miller, 22 of Phoenix, Arizona. During his riding career, Bike Lear was known by many as a fun loving rider, famous for his textbook style and effortless bike handling skills. Many regard Bike Lears greatest accomplishment as becoming one of the only mountain bike riders to ever actually scrub, a feat claimed by many but achieved by only a select few.

After struggling with a multi-year addiction of bailing on rides to go "work on his photography portfolio, bro," the bike rider that we all knew passed away on Monday, November 26, 2012. The official cause of riding death listed on the riding death certificate was "Posting a professional quality self-portrait of himself clearly posing while pretending to text on the cell at Chipotle, all like 'oh hey I didn't even know my photo was being taken' and shit."


The presiding doctor supplied this photographic evidence of Bike Lear in his last moments. The doctor also went on to add "Hey dude, you're not fooling anyone. Like, I bet you took AT LEAST five test shots."

The doctor told us that Bike  Lear probably didn't suffer in his last moments as a bike rider, because "at this late stage and in his degraded state, he probably didn't remember what riding was."

Bike Lear will be replaced in his familial, academic, and work duties by his clone, Photography Bro Lear:

Photography Bro Lear could not be reached for comment at the time of this story, but friends of Bike Lear reported that Photography Bro Lear was planning to continue many of the familiar traditions that friends of Bike Lear remember, like shamelessly living on Facebook, buying cars with stupid looking body kits, or always taking his shirt off in inappropriate situations.




Bike Lear's friend, photographer Tim Zimmerman, met Bike Lear on a photoshoot for Dainese at Blackrock. "I always thought Bike Lear had some of the best riding style around, and when I met him I was really excited to try to capture it. He seemed really interested in photography during the shoot, but I didn't really think anything of it at the time."

Timzim with Bike Lear and fellow photographer Cory Tepper, shooting for Dainese.

"I guess I thought Bike Lear knew his limits with photography. I mean, I ride bikes on the side, too, but you've got to be responsible, dabble with it, you know? Bike Lear just hit photography way too hard, and I guess he just couldn't hang. I was totally stunned when I heard Bike Lear was gone. I feel... responsible in a way, as crazy as that sounds," said Zimmerman, 49 of Ballard, Washington.

Friend Bob Stenson had this to say about Lear's passing: "You know, we all noticed the collared shirts and the cut off jorts, and all the weird emo photos going up on Facebook, and we all thought 'it's a phase.' We all had a wild phase, right? But then he started spending more and more time with that camera, and he was always too busy to ride or 'something came up.' You know what that all means, but you don't want to butt into someone else's business, you know? We could tell he was out of control, but we couldn't figure out how to help him. We held many riding interventions for Bike Lear up at Whistler, but even then Bike Lear would want to hang on the side of the race courses and check what angle Hylands or Sven were shooting or, like, F-stops and shit."

From all of us that still ride bikes, Lear, you will be missed.


-TEAM ROBOT