Accidental proximity

One of my cycling teammates and I were uncomfortably close to an accident over the weekend. Not once, but twice.

Jose and I were on I-25 Friday morning en route to a road race in Grand Junction. Had we known there would still be heavy traffic on I-25 at 9:30AM we would have probably chosen another route. But there we were, sitting in stop-and-go bumper-to-bumper traffic when we saw a large gap open up in the lane to our left. The traffic had started moving, and someone in that lane hadn't noticed. Eventually they did notice that traffic was moving and they hit the gas. What they didn't notice, however, was that traffic in that lane had again stopped and they rearended someone at 30-40 miles an hour. Jose and I both watched it happen in disbelief. It was just bout 2 car lengths in front of us and one lane over. Being stuck in the middle lane there was really nothing we could do except run over the the broken glass. It looked like the person that got hit was okay, but the back end of their car was completely demolished (the rearend-er was a pickup truck).

We witnessed another accident the following day while driving back from the race. We were on a two lane road that climbs up a mesa and then down through a canyon. We were cruising along pretty well until we came upon a group of people traveling together - a pickup towing a trailer, and three motorcyclists. It didn't make much sense to pass this group since were were just a few miles away from turning onto a larger highway, so we just sat in behind them. We weren't in a particularly twistie or fast section when we saw one of the bikes tumbling off the road. We're still not sure what happened, but the downed rider was an inexperienced rider so maybe she was looking at something else when her wheel hit the gravel shoulder. A few feet off the road there was a 5' dropoff, and she went one way while the bike went the other. We stopped and Jose ran down with the other riders. I hung back near the car because the potential of seeing a dead person in a ditch wasn't an appealing idea. It might be a good thing that the rider was inexperienced, because she was the only one of the 3 wearing a helmet. Apparently the other 2 felt that helmets didn't match their chopper and Harley. The rider most likely broke some bones, but at least she was conscious. There were enough people around that we felt like we would only get in the way when the ambulance arrived, so we left. I wish I would have taken a picture of the mangled bike and rider laying in some unfriendly brush. A friend of mine just bought a Harley Sportster over the weekend and I want to remind him that wearing protective gear is a good idea. He's smart enough to know, but I get the impression that his other friends with cruisers don't wear any gear while riding and I don't want him to cave to the pressure.