Cyclist Killed Last Week

A 47 year old man was killed while riding his road bike in Northern Peoria County last week.He was training for his secound season as a triathlete,he left behind a wife and kids and like I have so many times told them he would be right back and four hours later with a knock on their door their lives were changed forever.

One of the bad parts of driving a truck for 10 hours a day is you have the time to over think things that are in your life good and bad.When the story broke about the accident I spent the next two day's at work thinking of my own mortality and passion for riding. I started to road ride for the training in XC races. After years of only trail riding I finally learned the rewards of training on the road. I didn't even think of how dangerous it could be until the first few times cars didn't give me any room and missed me by what seemed like inches. I started to think about how much money I have spent on bikes, races, traveling to races, and nutrition.. and the worse the thought of the sheriff or a preist knocking on my front door to tell Cindy and the kids that I have been killed while on a training ride that I don't have to be doing. Was this really worth it?

So Saturday, I went on a late road ride around 4pm, on my regular quick 25 mile loop. I might see four or five cars and never have any problems and while I was enjoying riding by myself, I couldn't help but think why I had a passion for riding.

12 years ago some guys from the gym talked me into buying a mountain bike to go riding with them. I bought a Trek 930 and went to Jubilee State Park for my first trail ride... I wasn't in the woods 10 mins when my childhood came rushing back to me!

When I think about how old I was when I started riding bikes in the woods back in '71 or '71. I grew up on Tower Rd, just 15 miles from where I live now. It was a dead end road with eighteen houses on it, nine on one side and nine on the other with woods at the end. The kids on Tower Rd spent sun up to sun down in the woods, taking only enough time to go home and eat. Our main reason to be in the woods was building trails to ride our Stingrays on and build cabins to hang out in.We would get our dad's rake's and shovel's and any wood we could find to build our trail's and cabin's.The trailbuilding was just clearing the leaves and deadfall enough to make a path for our bikes.
Then the races would start and what a blast we had ! it wasn't radical but we had
some great races.On the day's we didn't race we would just hang out in the woods on our bike's, just sitting on our bikes while talking or killing time on a hot summer day or staying in the shade of the trees was cool enough.Is this where my passion for riding came from? I don't know but when I rode Jubilee for the first time 12 years ago I was back in 1971 and smiling like a kid again !

My thought's were also of Cindy and the kid's,we have a blast riding.Cindy and I are looking forward to putting in some long miles on the tandem this year and traveling to races and seeing some friends we have made along the way.Do I have a passion for riding ? or a passion for staying active as I get older ?

As I was about to finish my ride Saturday my last thoughts were of all the friend's Iv'e made because of my bike.Some close friends Midz,Thaller brother's and Stauby the PAMBA crew and the guy's I talk to on the blog's.I can't count the people at all the races !! I have an old childhood friend who built and rode the trail's with me on Tower road."Bob" has started to race and our friendship has been rekindled after years of raising our family's and being to busy to vist each other !

I hung up my bike in the garage Saturday... looked out to the sun that I just beat home and thought"I can't wait to ride tomorrow"