I have not posted many threads here on MTBR, but have gained invaluable information over the past two and a half years....when my mountain biking story began. In the fall of 2002, my girlfriend at the time convinced me to get a bike so I purchased a new 2002 Raleigh M600 (I think it was a 600) that gave me more than one concussion. It was a real beast hardtail. Very quickly, I found out that about 10 of my friends had ridden mountain bikes in the past or wanted to start riding. The spring, summer and fall of 2003 was pretty much spent riding. I upgraded to a 2003 Gary Fisher Sugar 3+ in the summer of 2003 and made many many upgrades. Sold the Raliegh at half price to a buddy so he could have an upgrade also. Riding with my group continued through the fall of 2003 and spring of 2004. Then it started happening...the group started shrinking until it was down to just me and one or two other friends...we still rode a lot and even bumped it up to night rides. In the spring of 2005 I upgraded again to a Santa Cruz Blur. Again, I sold the Fisher to the same friend at half price so he too could have another upgrade. I have put maybe 150 miles on the Santa Cruz Blur since I got it about a year ago....and none of my friends ride anymore. I rode for a while by myself, but it's just not as fun as riding with friends. All my old riding buddys have moved away, gotten married, bought a house or are expecting children. To make matters worse, it has literally rained in Houston every week for the last 3-4 months making any riding impossible. Now I find myself in a similar situation as my friends....just bought a new house and am getting married in May (both of which I am very excited about). I look at the bike and remember the good times but just can't find the time to ride. To make things worse, I have been on assigment since October working 6 days a week 50 miles from home leaving me only Sunday to get the necessities done. To make things EVEN worse...my new house is less than 1 mile from the trail head me and my friends used to ride like crazy......Can you get the passion back and even more importantly, can you get it back in others?? I spend more time during the day reading 'Passion' stories than I do riding my bike.....SUX!!! Just venting.......