Head-on bike collision on Denver’s Cherry Creek Trail
 

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/2...ek-bike-crash/

:eek:

I see this a lot in NYC (mostly on the Manhattan Bridge path and West Side Greenway): cyclists going into the opposite lane to overtake slower riders, without waiting to make sure that it's safe to pass.

MUTs are MULTIPLE USE TRAILS - not training grounds..

I see this all the time on the Springwater Corridor in Portland. Combine kids on bikes with walkers, families, runners, jogging clubs, homeless stumblers, roller-bladers, triathletes, segment seekers, variable path widths and surface irregularities, and cycling teams trying to do rotating pacelines and you've got a recipe for disaster.

I still use the trail, but I'm heads up, and watching for the inevitable at all times.

This is awful.

That path, and vritually every other mup in Denver (cept maybe the c470 bikeway) are too narrow and too crowded to exceed the 15mph speed limit. At peak times, even 15 is too much to weave around the dog walkers and stroller parents.

If youre going to hammer, get on the roads with the other vehicles.

I have to say I was guilty of this once and have since learned my lesson.

Was at the Upper West Side area of the shared bike/pedestrian path directly next to the Boat Basin Cafe. Group of 4 pedestrians were walking directly in the middle portion of the path which is marked for cyclists, and two much slower cyclists weaved around the pedestrians to try to overpass. I tried to go even further around the cyclists and pedestrians and before I knew it was looking headfirst at two cyclists going in the exact opposite direction. Grabbed ALL the brakes, flipped ass over tea kettle, and my bike flew out so hard that it hit another cyclist in the helmet.

Now know to go at MOST 15mph on the shared portions of the path, if not slower, and NEVER pass on the left unless I can see a 5 second gap in front of me.

I just took my wife and kids on a very slow and leisurely toodle on the cape cod rail trail. I was towing a trailer and my daughter was on her 16 inch kids bike. I couldn't believe the number of kitted pathletes blowing thru on the trail at speed. I was even lectured by a couple of roadies for not pulling over far enough into the brush on the side of the trail when I had to stop to adjust my kids harness. Total assholes. No wonder we cyclyists get such a bad rap.

Sucks to hear that someone almost died because of this. I see this all the time on the Strand in the South Bay of LA and it drives me crazy.....the speed limit is 15mph and people ride at high speeds all the time amidst beach cruisers, kids, etc.

These paths aren't built for cyclists to go train at race pace....they're made for everyone to enjoy and ride. I get that people want to ride on them because they don't have to battle cars, but if you want to ride at speed, go ride on the roads where you're not massively exceeding speed limits and putting other people at risk.

When I head north to Malibu I can either ride on the trails or ride on the roads....most times I choose roads as I can ride at pace. Yeah there's risk of cars, but I'm not going to be the a-hole riding 20mph+ on a MUT.

I seem to recall a similar incident earlier this year that resulted in a fatality

You want to train in trail you have to do it like at 5am... 9am is way too late already. I see it here... or go super late at nights.

The problem I see is just common sense from the riders and even walkers.

For example here there's several areas where you can rest and you can read the rules of the trail, for safety they say, the problem is that some riders and walkers follow the rules to the T and that's when bad things happen, because they forgot put the last rule in the list "PLEASE USE COMMON SENSE!"...

Guys trying to ride the bike with the dog

Dog walkers with the dogs at their left hand.

Dog walker at the right side of the trail and dog at the left track of the trail with the leash crossing from one side to another. GENIUSES!

Dads/moms with their kids in a bike but let the kid to next to them but at the left side. U can hit one of those kids if the kid does the wrong move.

Old lady walking that suddenly turns around and cross to the other side because is time to return?? w/o looking before turning around... last week saw two of those...

The guy in the bike or walking listening music, no matter what you scream at them they cant hear jack.

Relatively old dude that wants to show up his skills, or... "im better than you" and those go full gas and with poor riding skills as well... seen a couple of those crashes already.

Idiot that can't handle the bike at all and thinks with his butt... seen those off the road and crashing poles and people more than once already.

2 lady friends that took over both sides of the road while talking about their last love conquest... once stayed behind two like for 30 minutes, they noticed I was there because i had to sneeze. THe story was pretty good.

So what happened in this case? who knows, chick was not paying attention? who knows, people just does dumb S...T all the time and looks like this chick f... it up. She got lucky the man is not dead, happy for that to be honest. I bet she was listening music or at the phone and did not pay attention. Cant blame the guy that was going faster, specially if he was at his side of the road. Good somebody with cpr training was there....

I commute across the Golden Gate Bride almost daily and have seen a few accidents and more than a few close calls in the afternoon when the tourist numbers are high. I can't fathom why some locals get so pissed...like they've never stopped in a foreign country to admire the view or take a photo only to have inadvertently been in the way of some local. Crowds come with living in a tourist destination.

Electric bikes have only increased the risk. Those whom have little cycling courtesy (because their first introduction to cycling is via a battery) will just try to bolt right in front of someone, or make a dangerous pass, because they cannot calculate oncoming traffic or read how comfortable that oncoming traffic is on the bike.

27mph over 11.4k:rolleyes:

Good luck to Gaimon on that KOM with all the damn construction.

Training!
 

https://www.strava.com/segments/1153021

Local shop had a T/Th evening ride to the Queen Mary in Long Beach from an industrial suburb (ya, I know) east of Downtown LA. A quarter of the ride was on surface streets and the rest on the LA River Trail (mainly on the segment above). The group averaged about 15 riders and they would attempt to maintain a pace of 25mph but generally averaged about 22 (headwind!). Ride disbanded after the ride leader and bike shop owner veered left in the middle of the paceline. He didn't see a rider coming from the opposite direction. Collision and 2 weeks in the hospital, one week in coma. Short story long, the LA River Trail is essentially abandoned evenings and you'll see more pedestrians and stray dogs than cyclists. Pacelines are so weird.

if this was this past weekend, you were graced by the MS Ride: Cape Cod Getaway.

it was in boston on the minuteman, i was riding by the scene after the cops had blocked it off and ambulances were being loaded.

I ride this part of the path in and out of work on my commute and was on it yesterday. It is almost always a crazy mix of cyclists, people cruising on flat bar bikes, scooters, one wheels, and homeless people. You have to be an idiot or selfish jerk to ride this at full speed, which I see most days.

I don't ride faster than 15 MPH on this section and never pass unless there is a clear lane ahead. Unfortunately, it is a rare day that I'm not passed by some bike path Olympian who thinks mid 20's is a safe speed in a crowd. I'm always amazed at how people can't slow down and sit in until there is a clear section for a pass. I ride with my head up and left elbow ready to pop up and put someone down if they are about to ride into to me, and close calls aren't rare. The ride is fine once I clear the park and pass the bridge to REI, but the Cherry Creek Trail is almost always a mess.

I'm not surprised about this, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more. If you ride in Denver, just slow down and be safe when riding in a crowd, there are plenty of places to ride hard and get your work in, just not there.

So true, hence why I ride the road everyday and put up with the motorist yelling at me for not being on the trail. I'm working out not having a fun ride. I'm a hazard if I'm on the trail.

yell back they should be on the interstate

I got honked at for being on the road on Saturday. The comically hypocritical part was that this guy had a line of cars behind him long enough that state law required him to pull over, and it would have been easy for him to do so.

Quoted and emphasized for the people in the back. Denver is a growing city with its share of crappy car-bike interactions, but we’ve got a ton of places to ride that are amazing, and some pretty good shoulder lane infrastructure to boot. No need to hammer down Cherry Creek, Clear Creek, Platte R, Bear Creek.

need to start installing speed dots on mups.

This is a pretty good list. Dog walkers frustrate me to no end. I grew up with dogs, I love dogs, but people who own dogs need to control them. That's all there is to it.

That dude is an absolute beast. Phil Gaimon has him on this one, which is one of the local riders' choices: https://www.strava.com/segments/5179574

In the past few weeks, they moved the route around the Boat Basin Cafe because of this. Some cyclists were complaining about it, but there needs to be some separation between cyclists and peds. I have seen multiple crashes there (maybe yours!). Pedestrians never look, and cyclists can't see enough ahead to judge any obstacles. If it's sunny and warm, that whole area is a clusterf**k from 70th, between the cafes, and up to 95th.

I admit that I've ridden the river path like a bat out of hell. It's not a good idea. On Tuesday, I was riding along, and I just zoned out, not particularly trying to be a jerk or anything, but some guy had just passed me too close. I wound up skidding into a cab at the ferry drop-off near 42nd. I brushed my skewer against the fender, recovered, and kept going. I got lucky.

What part? There is a group ride I do occasionally when I am up there that uses the rail trail on the return leg. They usually tone it down a bit but not enough for my comfort and I usually drop off in Orleans where they pick up the trail and take it all the way back to Dennis.

We were in Brewster near Long Pond this Monday. I can't possibly imagine a group ride using that trail unless it's in the offseason. Even during a weekday morning, there were plenty of families and older folks out for a toodle along the path, as it should be. I just shook my head at the dudes with aerobars.

Dang our house is at the east end of long pond. The ride i was talking about is on a sunday and the path is plenty crowded when they hit it. No aerobars allowed on the ride.

I'm a huge fan of multi use trails....as a public amenity. Especially if they are designed to connect places....like neighborhoods and schools, neighborhoods and shopping, etc. Designed as part of an overall transportation system. Don't think a lot of users understand this general use purpose.

Here in Chicago the Lakefront Trail is also an oft-abused mup, even after the trail separation was completed last year (separate bike/pedestrian lanes in most places). We refer to the abusers as Lakefront Lances.

Not saying the guy that was training on the MUT was right, but this is what you get when you expect people to ride on MUTs and not roads.

My ex- and I have ridden that stretch of path. It's pretty. ...but it's a MUT. We knew it was a MUT and acted accordingly.

I would train on the roads and semi-consistently get yelled at to 'ride the path!' Uhhh yeah. I'm going 20mph + and you want me to ride where?!

M

I ride and commute all the same trails and the people the bother me the most in all honesty are the reckless and entitled pathletes in lycra on their bikes "training". The others--hey it's a MUP, kids are kids, dogs do their thing, walkers are often families and social groups and the paths are public resources that make suburban/urban living suck a little less, and we, dear cyclists, are at the top of the food chain speed-wise. "Common sense" means assuming that nobody else on the trail is totally predictable. Nothing you can do really, getting upset doesn't change the reality. Slowing down to smell the flowers (well except that section near the water treatment plant in August), have a sense of humor (dogs are cool, kids are cooler, people are generally funny when they think nobody is watching), investing in a clear bell (yep $50 Spurcycle FTW and worth it!) and riding fixed gear (with brakes) for a different-than-road experience makes for some very pleasant MUP commuting and joyrides even mixing with the stoopidhoomins . Need for speed? Hit the road...

Just wait until August 4th. That is the only segment of the PMC I wish they did differently every year. Inevitably it is beyond crowded to begin with, then you add in an extra couple thousand users for a few hours and it becomes and absolute ****show.


I ride our local MUP for about 6 miles to work when I commute during the summers. Fortunately I hit it at around 5-6am which allows me to blast down above its speed limit (it is for the most part, vacant at that time in the morning spare a few fellow early am commuters by bike and the odd runner).

I use it on the ride home for a slightly longer distance in the evening, normally between 4-5pm. I can't speed through any segment of it then. Heavily crowded at both ends, mostly empty in the middle part.

My morning pace tends to be around 20mph, afternoon is closer to 12mph if I'm lucky.

I go there in the afternoon when it's too hot for normal people.

Bike paths, MUTs and the GGB are dangerous places to ride. Besides slowing down, always need to expect the completely unexpected, especially if the other rider is riding a beater, rental or most telling, pedaling on the arch of their foot not the ball of their foot. The best one? suddenly stopping to take a picture! Gotta expect that - GGB is a tourist spot.

Pedaling on the arch of the foot is a dead giveaway to rider experience which translates into completely unpredictable behavior.

But, even experienced cyclists are guilty of idiocy. Some years ago my daughter and I are riding across the GGB, she is in front of me so I can see over her and call out instructions (she was 10yo). I am unclipped and we are soft pedaling, because hey, riding across the bridge is fun and views are great. some woman in full kit come sup behind us yelling to get out of her way. we don't yield. she is pissed goes by yelling. Not 30 seconds later she is on the deck wrapped up with a tourist. it was all I could do not to make some comment as we rode past.

People generally think they are invincible or untouchable, that is until they aren't. The sad thing is generally some innocent gets impacted by their selfishness.

A few years ago, on the first nice day of spring, my wife was hit head-on by a rider going way too fast for the narrow, shared path we were on. It was a bike/ped bridge crossing along a highway. We were plodding home into a headwind after a nice long ride.

The at-fault rider flew through the air and landed some thirty feet away (we'd check his garmin later to see that he was going over 30mph - slight downhill, tailwind). His bike bounced over the divider into the highway. He screamed. We'd find out later that he broke ribs, cracked his spine, and collapsed his lung.

Fortunately my wife made it through with only a thumb break - somehow - and yet, the other rider had recovered from his injuries before she did. But it was an incredibly traumatic experience, and one that was so preventable with just a modicum of respect for shared space. For the places where there's no need to go fast.

Anyway, my point is that this stuff makes me really angry. A MUP is a great way to get to wide open roads where you can open it up, but it is absolutely irresponsible and antisocial to let rip on them.

It also drives home to me how much we need more human-scaled space. How much we could benefit if there were less space devoted to cars and car storage, particularly in our cities, and more for the people who are walking, jogging, riding slow, or riding fast - so that we can get out of each other's way just a little bit more.

This exact thing happened to me going north on the greenway. Oncoming cyclist was on my side and luckily I was able to dive hard left. He t-boned me, breaking the new Hakka frame, a good cut on my hand and a big bruise on my quad. Thanked God there was no head injuries. The other guy spoke no english and I felt I had no recourse so after regaining some calm, I rode the busted bike back home to jersey.

Unless you're content to ride 10 mph, no serious cyclist should be riding on a busy MUT.

Have you tried riding through Manhattan to get someplace?

I think that falls under "be content to stay under 10mph". Leave earlier if you have to.

That's different from a 20-25 mph training pace.

Tell that to the 10,000 other cyclists, messengers, deliveries on e-bikes, etc that think it's a constant crit race.

Yes, the Westside Greenway is a constant disaster waiting to happen. My special favorite are the dog owners with those stupid retractable leashes who let their dogs meander across the whole trail.

Closest for me was a couple of years ago--I was riding north, minding my own business. not blasting, and a whole rat pack/peloton came around one of the blind corners all stacked up, taking up most of both sides of the MUP--

I'm getting old, but at least the reflexes (mostly) still work--I went for the right side weeds, brushed one of the guys' bars, stayed up and didn't crash. Put someone else in that situation and it could have been ugly...

I also keep thinking that they will eventually sort out pedestrians from cyclists as they have done on the south end, but I think it is a lost cause, as is the Brooklyn Bridge...