The Doug Ryder Reports

Chapter 6: Of Accidents, Safety, and Safe Riding, (Or Being A Tale Of Two Accidents)

We had a very interesting Doug Ride on the 5th of June. It started out at the usual time (7:30 or so) and with a fairly good turnout of riders; about twenty or so. We did the boring, five-mile ride up the Parks from the intersection with Cripple Creek Road and, as usual, got strung out on the way. Burnside and Yates managed to beat me up to the top of the hill (the first time that Doug Burnside has beaten me to the top of a hill in the first hour of any of these rides in a long time). Like I say, we got strung out going up the hill, but regathered once we got to the top.

Then we started down Rosie Creek Road and that’s where things got interesting. Again, we got separated along the way and regathered at the main fork toward the bottom of the hill. Tom Clark, Doug Stewart, and a couple other riders who’d gotten down there first and were waiting decided they wanted to take the right (upper) fork because DS said that there was a little trail a ways up that reconnected to the left (lower) fork which we usually took. They took off as Doug Burnside caught up with the rest of us. He tried to tell them to stop because they were going the wrong way, but they never heard him.

So, we were separated again. While we waited at the fork, Burnside counted and saw that we were three riders short. After a while, he went back up Rosie Creek to see what had happened. He never returned and after a while longer, other riders went back up to see what was going on. Finally there were about five or six of us left and we decided to go on. About half a mile up the left fork, we ran into Tom and Doug Stewart. They’d been patiently waiting for us to get there. So we continued, our numbers mysteriously reduced for reasons we wouldn’t appreciate until the end of the ride.

We got to the cool downhills at the bottom of the hill. I rode one and walked down the last one. Yates passed me like a bat out of hell between the downhills. Once we got to the swamp, things got a little weird. One of our younger riders wiped out (I never saw the actual accident) coming down the last hill. He was standing in the swamp, holding his bike and stated that he had broken his collarbone.

So, two of our people rode up to the Quist Farm to get help. I was out by the road and saw them ride up to the farm. I figured that Burnside and the rest would catch up (and most of them did, less Burnside) sooner or later and so I took off down the road. Don Lokken came out of the swamp, riding back to his car so he could come back and get the guy with the injured collarbone. I never saw him again after the twists and turns on Livingston and it was on the way up the hill to Cripple Creek that I learned what was being done for the injured rider.

He was riding in a truck with three other riders in the back. The driver was taking him to the hospital and one of the riders told me to let Burnside know what was going on. So I did. It started raining when I got up to the intersection with Cripple Creek road and continued thundering and raining all the way out to the Parks. I was all alone, I didn’t know who was behind or ahead of me, and I didn’t know where Burnside was.

I found out when I got back to the cars at around 10 o’clock. He and a couple others were there. What had happened was that one of the guys coming down at the back of the pack on the Rosie Creek downhill had wiped out and did a full-speed face plant right into the road. A couple of guys with him had stayed with him until Burnside showed up. One of them had ridden up to the top of the hill, flagged down a pickup which then drove down to the accident site, picked everyone up, and took them all up to the top of the hill. Burnside and the other rider then got off and rode back the cars and waited for the rest of us there while the driver took the injured rider and his friend to the hospital.

All in all, it was an interesting ride. Two people in separate accidents ended up going to the hospital and the group got split up several times. We never properly reformed after the regathering at Rosie Creek. The funny thing is, I showed my damaged helmet (I had an accident myself the previous Thursday) around at the beginning of the ride and Doug made it clear that this was a dangerous ride and people should be careful.

I don’t remember what the total distance of the ride was. About twenty miles or so. The best downhill was Rosie Creek (of course) and the longest uphill was at the beginning.

Anyway, that was that. That’s my report for this week. See ya next week!

Liam Wescott

a/k/a The Doug Ryder

FCC Historian