Death and Injury at Fitz's Challenge Cycling Race

A few years back, we went off fishing, destination Eucumbene. Unbeknownst to us, the Fitz’s cycling challenge was on at the same time.

This made passing cyclist and other traffic very dangerous, so we were very careful.

Then we came to Fitz’s hill itself.

We had one cyclist hang onto the back of my 4wd, as we very slowly drove up in 2nd gear. I was chatting to the bloke out of the window.

What impressed me was that although we weren’t going terribly fast, most of the cyclists were pumping the legs and powering up Fitz’s hill like you wouldn’t believe. Such a steep gradient, yet their legs just kep on going. True althletes, the lot of them (well, maybe not the one who hitched a hide to my truck!)

Sad news about the cyclist death this year.

IBN also had the story recently. The second rider was on a respirator, but is now breathing on his own and recovering slowly but steadily.

Actually it wasn’t the bike that killed him, it was the bitumen road. So we should ban sealed roads – viva la dirt!

Funny that JB, I was just thinking along the same lines…

If it had happened at the hillclimb, kart club or speedway, the facility would be shut down for 6 monhts pending an investigation.

If only cyclists were banned from the roads for 6 months…

interesting.

if the death had been at a motorsport event it would have been all over the electronic media.

The story did appear in the Canberra Times a week or so back.