Looking for some info. Any of you go and if so are there any details available on the accidents? After the ride the was lots of rumors but not much hard news. Supposedly someone was medivaced out because they were descending the first mountain on the wrong side of the road.
Yeah, I’ve heard it was a terrible wreck. The event was great. Very challenging, excellent support, and a beautiful day. I heard someone was descending the back side of Suck Creek (the first mountain) and was riding on the wrong side of the road. It was pretty obvious during the 5 mile climb that cars were coming in the other lane. I enjoyed the descent on that mountain. It was about 5 miles at 40mph. I just gave both brakes a tap every now and then to keep from feeling out of control. Why would anybody fly down a mountain in the oncoming lane if it was obvious that the road wasn’t closed? Apparently someone did and hit a car head on. From what I heard the rider had multiple fractures and spinal damage and was air lifted to a hospital. No news locally on the riders condition. It sounded like it might end up being a fatality. I couldn’t imagine hitting something head on at those speeds. The event had over 1200 people from all over the country. The wreck happened at the very back of the pack. This makes me think that the guy was half delirious from the climb, and wasn’t paying attention on the descent.
I got some second hand information from my wife from someone who saw the accident. The rider lost control, got sideways, and crossed over into oncoming traffic.
I can’t believe the local paper has not said a thing about this accident, but here’s what I’ve gotten from a friend of mine whose neighbor new the victim. He was about 22 years old and did indeed hit the car head on. He was airlifted by Lifeforce helicopter to Erlanger Medical Center. Last report is that he had extensive head injuries (among other things) and is probably brain dead. His wife was doing the ride as well and actually came upon the wreck shortly after it happened.
And yes, there were cars coming up the other side but I saw some that were coming up a little aggressively-going fast and hugging the center line-where a bit more caution would have been more prudent. This is not to place any blame on the driver, just what I noticed on the descent.
Please keep the rider and his family in your prayers (if you are so inclined).
And yes, there were cars coming up the other side but I saw some that were coming up a little aggressively-going fast and hugging the center line-where a bit more caution would have been more prudent.
Oh no - such a tragedy!
When the wife and I did the 3S3M with some friends from Geogia the year before last, the men went off with the race group to try and set a new course record while the wives opted to ride a more reasonable pace on the metric century course. Niether of the wives is overly fond of high speed descents and even less so on roads they do not know and the first thing I noticed/worried about as we began our 45-50 mph descent off Suck Creek was the lack of descriptive road signs. I got the impression that the twisties up and down Suck Creek are rather popular with the autocross/crotch rocket crowds but more importantly several of the turns were switchbacks with a decreasing radius, which had me worried that maybe I should head back to the top and ride down with the wife as we zoomed down in the morning fog/mist that was present that year. As we descended, I don’t recall seeing very many road signs indicating the approach of the more severe turns and one such turn about half way down featured a right-hand switchback, immediately followed by a left-hand switchback and with the speed the group was carrying, it was apparent who was local and who was not as many of us briefly ended up on the wrong side of the double-yellow line! The speed was intoxicating and it is easy to be taken in by the situation as in our case, several riders began to use more and more of the road surface momentarily forgetting about opposiing traffic - that is until we entered a switchback only to be greeted by a line of cars as we hit the apex of the turn!