Is road cycling dangerous?



Even the bears are out to kill us...

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/3...-near-glacier-national-park.html?intcmp=hpbt3

KALISPELL, Mont. – A grizzly bear attacked and killed a 38-year-old mountain biker Wednesday as he was riding along a trail just outside Glacier National Park, Montana authorities said.

Brad Treat and another rider were in the Halfmoon Lakes area of the Flathead National Forest when they apparently surprised the bear, Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said.

The bear knocked Treat off his bike, and the second rider left to look for help, Curry said.

Authorities found Treat's body at the scene, but not the bear. Wildlife and law-enforcement officials were searching for the grizzly Wednesday evening.

Treat was a law-enforcement officer with the U.S. Forest Service.

"Brad was an integral member of our area law enforcement team and a friend to us all," Curry said.

Treat grew up in nearby Kalispell, where was a standout distance runner in high school, his former coach, Paul Jorgenson, told the Flathead Beacon newspaper.

"He was a really good runner but he was also a kind-hearted person who cared about people," Jorgenson told the Beacon.

The second rider, who was not identified, was not injured. Authorities have closed the area, which is about 3 miles away from Glacier's west entrance, for public safety.

Grizzlies in the Lower 48 states have been designated a threatened species since the 1970s, but their numbers are increasing and so are conflicts between humans and bears.

The grizzlies in the Glacier area among about 1,000 bears in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem, which also includes the Bob Marshall Wilderness south of the park. At least 700 more grizzlies live in and around Yellowstone National Park, which is roughly 360 miles south of Glacier.

Six people have been fatally mauled by bears in the Northern Rockies since 2010, but those deaths were mainly in the Yellowstone area. Glacier officials say there are usually one or two non-lethal encounters between bears and humans each year inside the park.

Before Wednesday, there had been 10 bear-related human deaths in Glacier since the park was created in 1910. The last was in 1998, when three bears killed and partially ate a park vendor employee while he was hiking.

In the most well-known Glacier attacks, bears killed two people in different parts of the park in a single night in 1967. Those attacks became the subject of a 1969 book by Jack Olsen titled "Night of the Grizzlies," and later a documentary by the same name.
 
Of course there is a danger to it that isn't present in cycling in a more controlled area like a trail. I feel that the potential dangers are easily avoidable if you take the right safety precautions. I am no expert, but I find a huge step to just be relaxing. I find that when I'm riding by passing vehicles, I get tense and my riding gets wobbly. In that way I am actually making it more likely to get hit by a car.
 
Team Sky Bus pulls a very dangerous pass on an amateur cyclist...possibly in Merry Ol' England if the accent is a clue. And of course thems backwards Engrish driving on the wrong side of the road anyway!

Watch the video the cyclist recorded of the incident at this link:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-sky-apologise-for-nearly-mowing-down-amateur-cyclist-in-wales/

****ing idiot! ****ing *****! <I like this Englishman...speaks my language well. I'll buy him a quart of his favorite warm beer any day!>

This is the danger we face from supposedly PROFESSIONAL drivers that are intimately involved with road cycling on a day-to-day basis for years.

****ing idiot, is right.
 
Damn...the founder of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania's famous "Dirty Dozen" ride (climbing a bunch of the steepest paved and bricked hills around the city) was badly injured.

http://www.post-gazette.com/life/cy...ralyzed-in-bike-accident/stories/201609050103

By Sean D. Hamill / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pittsburgher Danny Chew, founder of the Dirty Dozen bike race and known as the Million Mile Man, was seriously injured in a bike accident Sunday that left him paralyzed from the waist down, family and friends say.

Mr. Chew, 54, of Squirrel Hill, was riding with his friend, Cassie Schumacher near Lodi, Ohio, going about 20 to 25 miles per hour when he had an apparent “dizzy spell” and drifted off the road and crashed into a drainage ditch, breaking his neck, Ms. Schumacher said today.

“I thought he was just veering away to go to the bathroom,” said Ms. Schumacher, who has been training with Mr. Chew for four years. “The road was perfect. He did not blow a tire. The only non-normal thing that day was when he veered away from me.”

After the crash, Mr. Chew was conscious but said he could not move anything below his waist. An ambulance from nearby Lodi Hospital got to the scene within minutes, and once he was diagnosed with a broken neck — damaging his C7 and T1 vertebrae, Ms. Schumacher said she was told — he was flown by helicopter to Akron General Hospital.

He had surgery later Sunday night and Ms. Schumacher said the doctors said they would not know for three or four days what his prognosis is. Since the surgery, he has been kept under heavy sedation to allow his body to rest, she said.

As to what happened that caused him to drift off the road, Ms. Schumacher said some friends who came to the hospital Sunday said that Mr. Chew has talked in the past about having “dizzy spells” but he has never been diagnosed with anything specifically and it is still unclear what caused the accident.

Mr. Chew lives largely hand-to-mouth, and does not work outside of organizing the Dirty Dozen and some odd, biking-related jobs, all to free him up for his million mile goal. He still lives in the home where he grew up with his mother.

Not too long ago he obtained insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace, but he has a large deductible and his family is already anticipating large medical bills from the accident.

His nephew, Steven Perezluha, set up the crowd-funding site Youcaring.com Sunday night. By 11 a.m. Monday, it had already raised over about $6,000 toward a $15,000 goal. Having already reached that goal later Monday, the family increased the goal to $25,000 and by 9 p.m. had raised $16,336.

“This is a shock,” Mr. Perezluha, 25, said of his uncle’s accident. “I was out on a ride of my own yesterday when [Ms. Schumacher] called me from Danny’s cell phone to tell me about it.”

“He’s everything to me,” he said of Mr. Chew. “He got me into cycling when I was 16 and pushed me to my athletic accomplishments. He’s the one who told me to never give up.”

Clearly shaken from watching her friend injured, Ms. Schumacher, crying, said in an interview that it was simply hard to watch “one of my best friends” go through this.

“He is such a kind-hearted person,” she said.

Mr. Chew is a Pittsburgher celebrated as much for his quirky and effervescent personality by his dedicated circle of biking friends like Ms. Schumacher, as he his for founding the Dirty Dozen Bike Race.

The Dirty Dozen is a 33-year-old race up 13 of Pittsburgh and surrounding towns steepest hills, held the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It has gotten international attention in recent years as videos of it’s insane hills like Canton Avenue attracted attention, but particularly from WQED’s Rick Sebak’s profile of the race in 2010. Mr. Chew had just announced on Friday that registration for the 2016 Dirty Dozen had opened.

He came to fame in cycling circles by twice winning the Race Across America — a 3,000-mile race — in 1996 and 1999. His jersey from the 1996 win and his medal and helmet from the 1999 win are on exhibit in the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum in the John Heinz History Center in the Strip District.

But in addition to gaining attention through the Dirty Dozen, Mr. Chew’s lifetime goal to be one of the few people around the world to ever ride one million miles on a bike in his lifetime has kept him in the minds of many.

He documents his mileage regularly on his biking-obsessed website Dannychew.com and he was on the second day of a “thousand-mile week” toward his million mile goal - he is at about 800,000 miles now - when he was injured, Ms. Schumacher said.

After Mr. Chew arrived at Lodi Hospital and was diagnosed with a broken neck and possible paralysis, Ms. Schumacher said Mr. Chew was his typical self.

“Well,” she said he told her, “worst case scenario, I’m going to have to be like the guy who just set a record in Pittsburgh on a hand cycle.”

“I’ll just have to finish my million miles on a hand cycle,” he said. “So be it.”



Damn. Just...damn.
 
Team Sky Bus pulls a very dangerous pass on an amateur cyclist...possibly in Merry Ol' England if the accent is a clue. And of course thems backwards Engrish driving on the wrong side of the road anyway!

Watch the video the cyclist recorded of the incident at this link:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-sky-apologise-for-nearly-mowing-down-amateur-cyclist-in-wales/

****ing idiot! ****ing *****! <I like this Englishman...speaks my language well. I'll buy him a quart of his favorite warm beer any day!>

This is the danger we face from supposedly PROFESSIONAL drivers that are intimately involved with road cycling on a day-to-day basis for years.

****ing idiot, is right.

What a *****, glad it was filmed. One of the biggest pro cycling teams and the driver still doesn't give a **** about safety. I've had a bus pass me way to close for comfort before, not fun, couldn't do anything, but stay calm,still and let it pass.
 
I think if you are riding a bike, you must accept the possibility that you will be killed. If you have dependents, i don't think it really fair on them for you to cycle on the road.

Conversely, if you drive a car, you must accept the possibility that you could kill. A child could run out between parked cars. It may not legally be you fault, but your conscience would certainly pay.
 
http://hudsonvalleypost.com/ulster-county-woman-arrested-following-hit-and-run-1-seriously-injured/

I pass this road everyday on the way home from work. I commented to many people how the glare leading up to this road is really bad at 6-8 pm. I see cyclist at this time and the visibility is beyond horrible, we're better off riding in the dark with a good set of light than in the glare. The A$$hole driver stopped to heck the condition of the cyclist and saw she was in bad shape, then got in her car and sped away. She turned herself in the next day and is looking at felony charges. I've stopped my afterwork rides and have mostly been riding early morning due to glare.

I think if you are riding a bike, you must accept the possibility that you will be killed. If you have dependents, i don't think it really fair on them for you to cycle on the road.

We can't live in fear and hide. We put ourselves at risk just stepping outside.
 
http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and...clist-struck-in-montana-in-critical-condition

Cleveland Cyclist Struck in Montana, in Critical Condition
Posted By Sam Allard on Mon, Sep 19, 2016 at 1:59 pm
shellisnyder.jpg

  • Facebook: @BikeCleveland
A local bike advocate was struck by a vehicle going 60 mph in Montana Sunday evening. Shelli Snyder, a co-founder and former board member of Bike Cleveland, was cycling from Cleveland to Seattle. She was relocating to Washington state and raising funds for Bike Cleveland by cycling cross country in the process.

Via Bike Cleveland, who posted the news to its Facebook page, Snyder suffered hip and leg injuries and a fractured skull. Emergency medics arrived quickly on scene, and Snyder underwent surgery to repair her hip and leg and to relieve the swelling in her brain.

Around noon Monday, an update was posted: Snyder remains in critical condition and physicians are concerned that her brain injuries may be life-threatening. She is currently unconscious.

Christopher Alvarado, the Executive Director of Slavic Village Development Corporation and a Bike Cleveland Board Member, started a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for Snyder's medical bills.

"Those of you who know Shelli know how strong she is in body, mind, and spirit," Alvarado wrote. "She has been there for all of us [to make] cycling safer and better for Cleveland. It's time for us to be there for her."
 
We play a game.

A game in which an unseen rock on the road can take us down hard. And even kill us. Anyone that thinks riding a bicycle anywhere at speed is 'safe'...
 
As many others have mentioned. You can get hurt getting out of bed walking to the kitchen. But once you learn how to walk properly...you find that the advantages to walking far outweighs the risks. But some people stay locked in their rooms and never leave the house because of the possibility of something happening to them. It's your call. :)
 
Italian Prince Filippo Corsini Killed in Cycling Crash at Age 21

by MCKENNA AIELLO | Wed, Nov 2, 2016 2:55 PM
Michael Bublé's 3-Year-Old Son Noah Diagnosed With Cancer

eye witnesses, the prince was dragged 30 yards across an intersection before medics were called. Corsini was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities arrested the 42-year-old man behind the wheel on suspicion of death by careless driving charges.

http://www.eonline.com/news/806577/...pstories&cmpid=par-121113-outbrain-paid-links
 
I live in Thailand and the WHO has recently released figures stating that Thailand has the 2nd highest fatality rate per population on the roads. Some 36/100,000 people (if memory serves).

Many expats refuse to drive here because it is like a need for speed video game tbh.

Cars and motorbikes, drive on the wrond side. Right turn in to the wrong lane. Approach a junction in the wrong lane to turn right into the wrong lane. Turn left OR right at a T-junction without looking at all EITHER way.

Having lived and driven here for some years now teh prevailing trheory I have is that Thai drivers are of the opinion that if they are on a piece of road, even in the wrong lane etc. they are there and everyone else needs to get out of THEIR way. There ARE road rulkes here but either no one knows them or no one cares about them.

Now add me on a bike scooting along. Needless to say I don't ride any busy or urban roads.

I take all possible safety precautions and ride with a view that every other road user is a homicidal idiot, but I really don't think that will make much difference here.

Interesting thread. A lot of good reading.
 
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Jeremy Grimm is pictured on the left, holding his daughter after he finished in second place in that race. He rode for Team GodSpeed and was deeply committed to his faith.

Jeremy won the Pro/1/2 state criterium championship race multiple times.
 
I know this question is subject to some variables, but I want to know if road cycling is dangerous if you follow the rules. My mom thinks it is quite dangerous, and has come up with all sorts of things that could happen, such as getting attacked by bears or wolves, getting knocked off the road by the wind coming off of a semi(I don't think that is very likely), getting hit by a drunk driver, or getting hit by someone who isn't paying attention and is on the wrong side of the road. Do you think that any of these things is very likely? All of her concerns are valid except probably the part about the wind of a semi knocking me off the road, but drunk drivers are rare around here, and I don't see either wolves or bears attacking me, and I have never seen anyone driving on the wrong side of the road badly enough to hit me. The only thing I saw that was very dangerous was someone driving down a hill in the middle of the road pulling a piece of farm equipment that took up the entire road, but that is quite rare. Do you guys think that road cycling is dangerous enough that I shouldn't do it at all?


Nathan

Car Statistics in the US:
  • Over 37,000 people die in road crashes each year
  • An additional 2.35 million are injured or disabled
  • Over 1,600 children under 15 years of age die each year
  • Nearly 8,000 people are killed in crashes involving drivers ages 16-20
  • Road crashes cost the U.S. $230.6 billion per year, or an average of $820 per person
  • Road crashes are the single greatest annual cause of death of healthy U.S. citizens traveling abroad
Pedestrian Statistics:
Bicycle Statistics:
If bicycling dangerous? Yes, but it is the safest form of transportation.