jyossarian

Two cyclists struck and killed in NW Ontario

When I saw this story, Shiznaz came to mind. He was a BF member killed while on his cross Canada tour. Be careful out there.

10 Wheels

"Wolfgang Von Unterstein • 9 minutes ago −
Pretty sad, but at least they had already had a reasonably full life. Thankfully it wasn't a couple of kids."

So nice attitude...

Jseis 

Decades after cycling Seattle-New York via Canada my father told me my mother cried like a baby when I left for she feared this. My heart goes out to their family and friends.

volosong

What a sucky attitude. I'm pretty sure they had grandchildren who looked up to them and with their physical conditioning, they could have easily enjoyed another twenty years of cycling pleasure. What a . . . (I better not say it.)

Dan Burkhart 

This is so sad. I travel that stretch of road a lot. Matter of fact, I'm on it today. I'll be passing that very spot in a couple of hours.
Every summer, touring cyclists take to the Trans Canada in large numbers. The number of incidents is very low, but still tragic when something happens.
I remember Shiznaz. I had no idea what had happened to him.

Dan Burkhart 

Local news reports said the tour operator had said the remaining 23 riders were carrying on to honor the two victims. I kept my eyes open, sure I would meet the group, and sure enough, I saw what appeared to be a group of riders travelling with support vehicles in the vicinity of Marathon, which would be about right.
I grabbed some stills from my dash cam to share. From these, you can get an idea of the type of road they are riding.









I didn't count the riders, and they were strung out over several miles, but 23 sounds about right. It was raining pretty hard when I met up with them.
You can't see it of course, because my camera faces forward only, but each bike had a reflective triangle on the back. This shows that the tour operator took at least some measures for safety.

jyossarian

Honestly, there's not much they can do to protect them short of shutting down the road to traffic. A separated bike path would probably be a better idea and encourage more people to ride cross country or at least cross province.

Dan Burkhart 

A segregated bike path is a nice dream, but it's never going to happen. A bit wider strip of pavement right of the fog line would make a huge difference.As you can see in my pictures above, most of the route has a very skinny strip there.

conspiratemus1

The daughter of a friend of mine, and her partner, are riding across Canada too, camping self-supported. They traversed that 11/17 chokepoint between TBay and Nipigon on 11 July. That was the only part of the whole ride so far that they found really scary (for good reason, sadly.) Once past the split, they really enjoyed the whole stretch of 17 around Superior. The big trucks have been great, Dan. Your fellow drivers get a big thank you from me, on their behalf (and from my own experience.)

But a deeply saddening ending for Robert and Irene Booth. I'm just sick.