Another article
Bike maker dies
By Janie Fichter, Times Staff Writer Sunday, July 10, 2005
Thomas James Bruni, 54, of Baltimore, died after he collided with a van while riding his bicycle on Stone Road in Pleasant Valley Saturday.
Bruni was riding one of the bicycles his Baltimore company designs.
At 3 p.m., Bruni was traveling southbound on Halter Road, approaching the intersection of Stone Road.
Bruni collided with the passenger side of a 1998 Pontiac Trans Sport Van, driven by Michael Gooch, 38, of Westminster, that was traveling westbound on Stone Road, just as it crossed the intersection. Bruni didn't stop for the stop sign, according to the Maryland State Police report.
Bruni was wearing a helmet, police said.
Following the collision, Bruni was taken to Carroll Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead.
At the accident scene, Therese Spadaro, Bruni's wife, was questioned by police but kept walking over to her husband's mangled bike, which lay in a grassy shoulder of Stone Road next to a cornfield. She would hunch over the bike, crying, from time to time.
Bruni was the owner and designer for Baltimore's Bruni Bicycles, which makes tandem, road and mountain bicycles. The bikes range in price from $1,000 to nearly $6,000, according to the company's Web site.
Five people in the van were taken to the hospital with minor cuts and abrasions: Wendy Gooch, 39, Isaac Gooch, 6, and Abigale Gooch, 3, all of Westminster; and Margaret Gooch, 80, and Carmen Gooch, 68, both of Palm Coast, Fla.
Bruni was an active member of the Baltimore Bicycle Club, according to friend Peggy Dymond, of Aberdeen.
"Tom was a very important member of the BBC," she said. "He will be thoroughly missed."