Writing about cyclists hit by drivers is awful — it’s even worse when you know them

Working at Canadian Cycling Magazine is pretty great. It’s one of the few places where you don’t have to minimize your browser window when you’re watching the Tour de France in case the boss comes by. In fact, if anything, the boss is usually sitting beside you watching along. There’s a great team here and we all get along. Even my cranky editor. Mostly. (You know I read your stuff, right? Ed.)

There’s only one thing I hate: writing about cyclists who have been hit by drivers. Reading about their injuries, or even worse, when they’ve been killed.

The first thing I do when I see that a cyclist has been killed by a motorist, if they are local, is nervously look for the name. It’s a weird feeling—there’s a sense of relief, but you also know that the person you don’t know had a family that got the worst call.

Then I write up the story. I look at this person who is no longer with us and check their LinkedIn. What did they do for a living before one morning, when they were out for a nice ride, and then never made it home? I check their Facebook. Who are they leaving behind? I see photos of them smiling with their family, or out on their bikes with big smiles. It’s an awful thing to research.

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Last week a cyclist was hospitalized in Collingwood, Ont. And he’s someone I have known for decades. Stacy Wall is a great guy, a man of few words at times, who has always been a strong bike rider and a good friend. He puts in some pretty crazy rides, sometimes he rides from Collingwood to Toronto, stays the night, and then heads back home the next day. That’s a hecukva weekend.

As far as what happened to Stacy, the news report is pretty standard. CTV said that, “Police say a cyclist has been hospitalized following a fail-to-remain crash that shut down a rural road south of Collingwood Tuesday morning. Concession 10, between Sideroad 30/31 and Sideroad 33 in Nottawa, closed shortly before 8 a.m.”

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It goes on to say that people saw a black, older-model pickup truck allegedly hit the cyclist and then leave the area. “Fail to remain” is the police term for a hit-and-run.

As far as collisions go, he was one of the lucky ones. When someone in Lycra, or jeans, or a dress, or whatever, gets hit by a 5,000-pound vehicle, you expect the worst. Stacy told me, “My broken scapula is my worst injury. I’m doing…