Uneasy Riders: Spills That Kill

DEATHS OF TWO prominent racers have made cyclists acutely aware that road hazards can do more than give them a flat tire. Potholes and Pontiacs can buy a competitor a slow ride on a hospital gurney.

Lisa Fitch had 18 minutes to consider it while lying in a bed of fire ants, both legs broken in several places, 26 fractures throughout her body, as she waited for the ambulance.

She had 36 more days to think about it while lying in a Dallas hospital, doctors telling her she would never compete in another cycling event and that she might never walk again.

But she didn't need to consider anything. If she could walk, she would ride again. That much she knew. She couldn't let the perils of the road scare her off of it.

"It never really crossed my mind, even after all this," Fitch said. "Sometimes you just have to hold onto things that keep you going."

Fitch, in Seattle for the National Cycling Championships this weekend, figures she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time when the lawn-equipment trailer became detached - at 55 mph - from the dump truck and struck her head-on while she trained on her bike that day in May, 1990.

Eight months in a wheelchair, 22 weeks in a cast and nine surgeries later, Fitch is riding full speed again.

And she is fearless.

And she is scared.

And she is not alone.

The riders who compete in tomorrow's criterium at Seward Park and Sunday's grand prix on an 8.4-mile street course are the sport's road racers. Which at times is like being the steeplechasers in track and at other times like being the balls in baseball.

Unique to their sport is the open road and everything on it. Potholes, Pontiacs, pinheads.

"If you're serious about the sport, you have to realize it's a big risk, and it does happen," Fitch said.

Nowhere else in racing is the risk as great.

In foot races, they have stadiums. In auto racing, closed courses and four wheels. Even in track cycling, riders have closed-circuit velodromes.

"It's a unique thing," said Peter Stubenrauch, a 10-year racing veteran and three-time state champion in his home state of Colorado. "It's a whole other evil to the sport. To be good you have to train. To train, you have to be outside with cars and trucks."

That point was brought crashing home to competitive cyclists across the nation with news of the death of 1992 Olympian John Stenner four weeks ago.

Stenner, 29, was killed in a collision with a pickup truck while commuting by bicycle from work in Greeley, Colo.

His death came less than a year after Miji Reoch, an 11-time national champion and Fitch's coach during her recovery, was killed while cycling with a student in Dallas.

"Everybody in the cycling community could relate to that," Steve Penny of the U.S. Cycling Federation said of Stenner's death.

"It's a rude awakening for people," Stubenrauch said. "It makes them realize it could have been any one of us. Every now and then you hear about someone getting hit by a driver and killed. But it never seems to be someone you know or know of. It's shocking."

Fitch estimates that one of every five competitive riders has been hit by an automobile.

The awareness of the danger can create an emotional ambivalence. An internal tug between: "ride hard and win" and "be safe or die."

"After a while, you sort of develop a sixth sense and kind of know where cars are," said five-time world-champion Rebecca Twigg, 31, a Seattle native who lives in Flagstaff, Ariz. "You have to ride defensively. It's second nature now. It's not really distracting unless it's during really heavy traffic; if you're constantly slowing down for hazards, you can't train at full speed."

Although it's rare, cars occasionally come onto road courses during races, sometimes even getting through the "rolling enclosures" of motorcycles and pace cars that surround riders as they race through city streets.

Most recently, in February 1993, a pickup truck slammed into a group of cyclists during a road race in Mexico. One American rider suffered a broken back and at least 10 more were hospitalized.

"These things kind of go through your mind when you're on the course," Twigg said. "Sure, it's a little bit distracting, but it's better than being dead."

Fitch said the fear can work for a rider.

"It's that fear that feeds on the adrenaline and creates just one big ball of energy," she said. "You can't think about it when you're riding, going 50 mph down this descent. ..."

Stubenrauch, 24, hasn't been hit by a car during his racing career, but regularly has close calls.

He calls them "reality checks" and "eye-openers."

Anything but reasons to quit or reasons to ride in constant fear.

"If you're constantly thinking about it, you're going to get hurt," he said. "You'd be too much of a basket case to finish any race.

"It's wasted energy to stress about that stuff."

Besides, he's able to console himself with the knowledge that most bike-auto accidents aren't nearly as serious as Fitch's or Stenner's.

Most are like Twigg's accident early in her career in Seattle, when she broadsided a car at an intersection in a residential neighborhood. The impact broke the driver's side window of the car, Twigg said, but she escaped without serious unjury -- although not before getting a ticket for failing to yield.

Or like Dede Demet's accident a few months ago in Colorado Springs. Demet suffered badly bruised knees and scratches on her face when a driver ran a yield sign and broadsided her.

"I think I came out of it really lucky," Demet said, "especially seeing my friends who have been hit. The ones who survived."

And rather than flee from the road in fear, Demet echoes the theme of the road racer: The sport has no room for the road worrier or the uneasy rider.

"You can't live in fear," Demet said. "My whole perspective is you have to live every day to your fullest.

"Life's too short. Life's too precious. You've got to enjoy it and do the things you love to do."

So they respect the risk of the road and ride through the fear. And carry on their race on the open road even where riders such as John Stenner were forced off.

"I didn't know him personally," Fitch said, "but I don't think it's something he would have wanted us to back off on, either."