Road Bike Racing - Wisconsin Rider Killed

From Cycling News.com:

A rider has died in Wisconsin, USA, after he crashed at high speed during a race. 34 year old Steve Hoff of Barron, Wis., was competing in the Firehouse 50 when the accident happened on Highway 63, north of Drummond. Hoff was travelling at an estimated 40 mph (64 km/h) when he hit another rider and came down, suffering head, upper body and leg injuries. He was taken to a hospital in Duluth, where he died.


Freaks me out a bit since I've done this race a few times and never considered it that dangerous. Just goes to show that any race can be deadly.

Not trying to judge- just looking for a few more facts. Was he wearing a helmet?

:( Too bad for the guy. RIP dude.

Koffee

It was an organized race. I can't recall doing a race where helmets were not required.

http://www.kdlh.com/news/headlines/897687.html

See the above article for more information.

I was in this race on Saturday.

From what we have heard from a guy who had been riding in the pack with Steve, he apparently locked handlebars or somehow got tangled with another rider and flipped end-over-end, with his helmet flying off at the first impact, and his head hitting on one of the next impacts. There was a significant head injury and a major loss of blood, from what I can pull together. We heard the next day that he had suffered a C3 neck fracture, which would explain why he wasn't breathing at the scene. This fellow who had been near the rear of the pack (Steve was at the front) was quite shook up over what he had witnessed.

The section of the race course where the crash occurred is an excellent blacktop section of Highway 63 about 2-3 miles north of Drummond, WI. There was a pretty good downhill dip in the road there, and the pack would probably been going all out as the finish line for the 50 mile race was just about 5 miles out. So, I can imagine they were going 40 mph as the story says.

Sheriff's officials had the highway closed and all traffic backed up while a helicopter airlifted the biker out. All of us slower bikers clumped up at that point and it was very somber to watch the chopper take off over us. As we passed the site, I noticed the blacktop had some major gouges in it from where the bike (s) skidded. It put a very dark cast over what has always been a fun race. Incidentally, it was the 25th anniversary for the race - what a tragedy.

I remember it being a well organized race.

In all the races I did I never considered the possibility of dying.

Wow. Thanks for the full update. Sorry to hear about the guy. I thought he was probably wearing a helmet, just wondered how the helmet failed. :(

Sorry to hear about the guy and the race.

Koffee

Very sad story. Bike racing is a very dangerous sport. No one thinks it will happen to them and every once and a while unfortunately it does :( It seams that helmets are only good for one impact. I'll have the jitters thinking about this going into my next races...


I wonder too if that was a yellow line rule race. I did one of those last weekend in red neck territory and some of these trucks and cars did not slow down at all in fact some sped up. :(

I, too, raced in the Firehouse 50 race on saturday and passed by the fallen rider about 3 minutes after the crash. Very shocking to see the poor fellow on the pavement.

The yellow line rule was in effect for this race. The 50 mile course (47.8 miles due to road construction on saturday) is open to traffic. In fact the riders were told before the race that pack behavior on Hwy 63 would determine the future of the race as there had been complaints from drivers about riders on the left side of the yellow line on this part of the course. Hwy 63 is where the crash occurred. I don't know the circumstances of the crash or whether the yellow line rule had anything to do with it. I do know that the race organizers try to make the Firehouse 50 as safe as possible for the riders and are extremely disturbed over Steve Hoff's tragic death.