Buzz Larsen and LeRoy Davey have a lot in common. To start with, today (May 2) is both of their birthdays.

Davey, a former Powell math teacher, was born in 1929. He was a popular junior high math teacher, teaching generations of students in his decades in Powell. Larsen, who operated Larsen’s Bicycles in downtown Powell from 1973 to 1996, was born in 1933. You don’t have to be a math wiz to know they are old friends.

Davey taught Larsen’s daughter, Laurie, and Larsen supplied the Davey family, including wife Marge and children JoAnne, Jacquie and Susan, with bicycles.

“Mr. Davey made math fun,” Laurie Larsen said.

The two men met at the bike shop in the 70s. Davey wanted a bike and Buzz had some for sale. Their obsessions with riding area roads brought them together; sort of. They both were active cyclists well into their 80s, often doing the legendary Old Guy Loop — a 24-mile ride out of Powell on Avenue E to Wyo. Highway 294, then south to U.S. Highway 14A, taking the four-lane back to town. But they rarely rode together. Instead, they’d ride opposite directions on the loop, “stopping in the middle to talk,” Laurie said.

Another thing they have in common is wrecking their bikes. Davey has twice been hit by cars while riding in the region. He suffered at least one broken leg in the accidents. Larsen has twice become entangled with dogs while riding, forcing him to the ground; broken bones on contact.

“He broke his jaw and spent a week in the hospital,” Laurie said.

They both quickly recuperated and never let the incidents deter them from getting back in the saddle. Though they don’t ride anymore, both are still tough as nails. Ten years ago they did the Old Guy Loop with a group for their birthday celebrations.

Family and friends threw both of them an old-fashioned picnic Sunday — a risky party planned for outdoors during Wyoming’s volatile early spring. Luckily it was as close to a perfect day they could have hoped for with a gentle breeze and the smell of burgers, hot dogs and fixings wafting through the neighborhood, co-mingling with the sound of laughter. Yet the miracle weather wasn’t even close to the top miracle of the day.

Last September, Marge and LeRoy Davey were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary after LeRoy was moved to Cody Regional Health’s Spirit Mountain Hospice House. It didn’t look good for LeRoy at the time and he was forced to trade in his bicycle for a wheelchair.

Fortunately he started feeling better, heard to say on occasion, “I’m real slow at this dying thing.”

They eventually kicked him out of hospice care and, after a stint in a care facility, he returned home.

Fast-forward to the Sunday afternoon party a few months later: Buzz was opening birthday cards and sipping on a Flying Start IPA next to Pat, his wife of 25 years, when LeRoy came bopping around the side of the house on his own power (with the help of a walker) looking for his birthday buddy in the crowd of more than 50 partygoers and a cold Guinness.

Neither wanted a big party. “They didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but we’re making a big deal,” Laurie said before a warm rendition of the crowd singing, “Happy birthday.”