Sad News - death on the GVBR

bit obvious isnt it?
all the people who WERE posting on that forum are now on the ride! dooooooh!!

oh, and this...
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/bike-riders-mourn-loss/2005/11/28/1133026406278.html

 

On 2005-11-28, Deest <[email protected]> wrote:
> Head on. The news was reporting a gust of wind blew her into the path
> of the oncoming car. If this is true, the driver may well have been
> doing all the right things, may have slowed down and may have been
> careful. We just don't know.

Indeed. Suppose that the car driver had slowed down to 40 kph. The
cyclists probably would have been doing upward of 20 kph. That's a
relative approach speed of 60 kph. If the gust of wind was at just the
right moment, the car driver would have had no chance to get the hell
out of the way.

There would have been plenty of witnesses; I'm sure we would have heard
by now if the car driver were at fault. My deepest sympathies go out to
the family of the woman that was killed; those that were in the area
when the accident occurred; and the driver and occupants of the vehicle
involved.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

 

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
> no
> i mean why are thew mass of riders on a public road when many are
> probably not trained enough to realize tha dangers out there
> it takes years to be able to cope with the unexpected on the open road
> we all know what 'general' city traffic can be like
>
> im just saying i hope the signage was well done and everyone else on
> the ride is ok and makes it back safe
> i guess heaps will quit tonight and they will have to quickly come up
> with a solution to get those masses home
>
> D
>

At the risk of being rude...bollocks. I've been riding less than two years
and I was out of the gutter and riding like a vehicle within 6 months. This
is exactly the sort of belief structure that keeps potential cyclists off
the road and prevents cyclists being taken seriously as vehicles. "Do you
ride all the way to work? On the roads? Ooh, isn't that dangerous? Ooh, I
wouldn't be game..." &etc.

Now I don't pretend to know exactly what happened in this instance, but it
sounds like raw bad luck at this stage. Again, if they didn't hold the ride
on a public road, where would you suggest they ride? I'm led to understand
that bike-paths are a bit few and far between in those parts.

 

[email protected] wrote:
> no
> i mean why are thew mass of riders on a public road when many are
> probably not trained enough to realize tha dangers out there
> it takes years to be able to cope with the unexpected on the open road
> we all know what 'general' city traffic can be like

bullshit.

 

A warning, The Age article includes a picture that may upset you. I realise they're trying to cover the story but I'm so fcuking upset that I'm now going to turn off the computer & do something else to clear my head.

 

really sucks...... I think it is actually un important given the circumstances of the "accident" which it sounds like it truely was, reading the reports of the lady, doesnt matter how she died, sounds like the community in general has lost a very caring person.

 

Bleve wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
>
>>no
>>i mean why are thew mass of riders on a public road when many are
>>probably not trained enough to realize tha dangers out there
>>it takes years to be able to cope with the unexpected on the open road
>>we all know what 'general' city traffic can be like
>
>
> bullshit.
>

Yup

 

This was an experienced rider so this argument makes no sense.

 

Again, if they didn't hold the ride
on a public road, where would you suggest they ride? I'm led to understand
that bike-paths are a bit few and far between in those parts.

I did this same ride 16 years ago (god I'm old) and hardly re,ember seeing a car. There are roads in Vic that hardly get used by cars and I would imagine that this will be brought up at any future inquest.

Having said all that, this is an awful tragedy and as a fellow cyclist and GVBR participant I felt saddened like I'd lost a kindred spirit.

 

This is very sad news, especially on the tail of Jim Price's death (aka Boudreaux) on the weekend. He was hit while riding by a teenager who may have been SMSing while driving.
He was a big contributer to many cycling forums, and will be missed by many.
Everyone, please be carefull out there.

ref:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cpress/20051127/ca_pr_on_wo/us_text_messaging_death

 

"cfsmtb" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
>
> From Bicycle Victoria:
> Update 28 Nov 05: Road fatality on VicRoads Great Victorian Bike Ride
> http://www.bv.com.au/inform.php?a=5&b=142&c=1773
>
> Condolence thread from the BV forum:
> http://www.bv.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=539
>
>
> --
> cfsmtb
>

The most recent story from The Age (read in hardcopy today in the tearoom at
work, so no url) suggests that everyone involved was, in fact, doing the
right thing. The driver had slowed to "between 50 and 80kph" which is vague
in the extreme, but they did slow down and were paying attention. There are
times when you can do all the right things, even doing something fairly
safe, and it can all go wrong.

 

I've just got back from the GVBR.

The wind on that day was gusty and on your nose all day with even powerful riders barely able to top 30km/h into the wind.

There were a great many novices on the ride and complete concentration was required to move with any pace to pass them with oncoming cars causing bikes to move about on the road if on the RHS of the lane whilst passing (let alone trucks which were really throwing the bikes about).

It's hard to say what really happened as i was thru before the accident and didn't see it, suffice to say it is probably a combination of a great many different elements that individually would have not led to this tragedy.

 

"DaveB" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]
> Bleve wrote:
> >
>> They could do the Great Victorian 1551 laps of a velodrome ride.
>>
>> Would save a lot on moving campsites too ... And shabby could give them
>> lessons in trackiquette - don't ride if its raining somewhere within
>> 100km ...
>>
>
> And if you lose count of laps you have to start again.
>
> daveB

Oh, har bloody har har.

 

Based on the stats, 21 years with an average of 4500 riders doing 570km per
ride, one death for a total of 5386500km is pretty darn good. Still does
nobody any good condolence wise.

 

On 2005-12-04, Paulus (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
> Based on the stats, 21 years with an average of 4500 riders doing 570km per
> ride, one death for a total of 5386500km is pretty darn good. Still does
> nobody any good condolence wise.

Are you sure you didn't forget a zero there somewhere? 53,865,000km.

It's an amazing statistic. Must be about /the/ most safest activity
to do.

Probably somewhere around 3,000,000 person-hours too...

--
TimC
"A distributed system is one in which I cannot get something done
because a machine I've never heard of is down." -- Leslie Lamport

 

it's wierd though, I was riding about 1/2 hour behind her as I was 'domestique' for my 11 yr old daughter (that translates as putting up with 5 hours of whingeing every day) and the wind up until we got diverted off the highway around the accident scene) was gusting, but either full on headwind of blowing (on that stretch) from right to left. That would have blown her off the road.

Riding etiquette was vastly improved on last year, possibly due to the educational CD that was sent to every entrant, and the police and VicRoads had temporary speed limit reductions to 60km/hr on all major roads that we cycled on. There were even a few uniformed police riding as well!

Shame that the riding was so flat and boring for the first 3 days - it should have started from Echuca. even sadder about the fatality.

 

TimC wrote:

> It's an amazing statistic. Must be about /the/ most safest activity
> to do.
>
> Probably somewhere around 3,000,000 person-hours too...
>

Everything is safer than rock fishing...

--

Regards
Prickles

 

Re claim to be the first fatality on the GVBR.

1) At least one competitor has died in his sleep at the overnight camp sites. I trust my source on this one.

2) I was told that about fifteen years ago a rider on a road bike dropped his wheel through the cracks in a longitudinally planked bridge and broke his neck after going over the handlebars. His life support was turned off later in hospital.
My source at the time was a teenager who might have been retelling an urban myth.

Mike

 

at least one rider (not competitor - it's not a race), dies in their tent on most years I was told by a source in the medical team. There's always the dread moment when there's only one tent left in the camping ground and someone has to go and look. At least you'd go doing something you like......
There are always 70s and 80s year olds doing the event.
I suppose the point is that it's the first on-road fatality.

 

On 05/12/05 at 20:20:57 coppershark somehow managed to type:

>
> Re claim to be the first fatality on the GVBR.
>
> 1) At least one competitor has died in his sleep at the overnight camp
> sites. I trust my source on this one.

Myrtleford in 199n during the night of the rest day.


--
Humbug
BE A LOOF! (There has been a recent population explosion of lerts.)