The bad news just keeps on coming.
An Indian Wells man has become the latest bike rider to die in what has become a truly horrible month for SoCal cyclists.
According to mydessert.com, the rider, described only as a man in his early 60s, was riding east on Miles Avenue near Washington Street when he apparently struck a curb and fell, suffering critical injuries. He died sometime later at a local hospital.
A sheriff’s deputy suggests that he may have had some sort of medical condition that caused him to fall; however, no details were released and cause of death is being withheld pending an autopsy and toxicology reports.
This is the 40th cycling fatality in Southern California this year, the sixth in Riverside County and the second in the past two months in the small community of Indian Wells. It’s also the 11th bike-related death in this very tragic month of July; over a quarter of this year’s fatalities have occurred this month.
And we still have two weeks to go.
My deepest sympathy and prayers for the victim and his loved ones.
Update: The victim has been identified as 61-year old Gordon West of La Quinta. According to the coroner’s office, his death was due to natural causes, rather than a fall.
If it’s our time to go this is a good way to do it. I’m grateful for this one being taken off the tally of accidental avoidable or not deaths. It is always grim when the reaper comes but not always relevent to what we are doing at the time.
Regarding quarterbacking when it is rather relevent to understand as well as possible what’s transpired those most efffected are often initially either from being too close or as children or students otherwise not able to ‘trunk’ the bones as elephants do. We are all people and feel the loss however distant to the ‘unlucky’ we might be. In mourning those who are open to information should not be denied it from our fear of offending them should we offer it or the appearance of insensitivity discussinig details the understandably feel more then actually believe to be personal to them only.
The community to my knowledge has not suggested any of these deaths where sinful or even intentional but we do find some of them mysterious and do speaking personally to my own feelings NEED to know if things like ‘rumbles’ can be deadly to experience or wet leaves need extreme evasive maneuvers. I’ve learned to not assume something like a piece of cardboard is soft but over the years have come to respect the greater effort wider tires require as worth it and reduced effort being available from augmentation of our power instead of direct reductions in rolling resistance that sacrifice traction usually to obtain.
I think anyone who is at risk of losing control of theree vehicle as they die is heroic for riding a bike instead of driving a car even if it means they might not make as obvious a mark when they go- there going is more likely to be just them as noted here. This biker could of taken a dozen bikers with him if he had driven a car instead and passed while passing us or only attempting to.
People die in cars all the time. We know all too well what happens when they are at speed around people. I do not believe cars are safe to drive without more technology now that it is available to take over for us if we are not sufficienty attentive and such technology is being marketed in bits and pieces as if to hold back for future model years- to build in obsolescence now. The ultralight passenger and vehicle even when we collide as a friend of mine did with a pedestrian who ran in front of him rarely kill- we feel bad, and he does, but less inattentiveness in a car would of surely killed and that is something to feel very very very good about.
Guilt is a strange thing- it is often unwelcome and sometimes unhelpful. I know now that a memorial service has occured- but we have only just begun to learn from some of these deaths. Moving has risks- it’s nota bout being on a bike- b eing on a bike reduces the risks ofour moving to others, and need not increase the risk to ourselves. None of us can bring those taken too soon back- but we can resist the impulse to not learn as much as possible from reflexive denial and the pain of dwelling. The days since Monday have had me spend much time in meditation like silence and thought over the public figure to so many whose death was preventable and most likely prudently so. The main cost of preventing such deaths in the future is the pain of admitting it was not lightning but rather gravity, not a random bullet but a tree that had perhaps been there long enough to have grown from a small seed itself. If anyone can even make the family whole by cutting a seven figure check then by all means do so- but to ask us to not investigate whether any other such relief is available not just to spouses but to the actual chidren for whomo even more then spouse or parent no substitue can ever be found if your unable even if otherwise willing to so endow is unreasonable and I type this because for most this fact can be overlooked.
There is an expression “Pride goeth before the fall”…. anyone care to comment on it’s applicablity or inapplicability as I’m presently at a loss about it’s history or any confident hint ofit’s meaning…….