Collision Course

The intersection at the foot of the University
Bridge—the site of a fatal collision two weeks ago between a dump
truck and two cyclists—contains two haunting tributes to the
victim who died, Bryce Lewis. The first, a white-painted “ghost bike”
like the ones that went up around town a few years ago, perches on top
of the road sign marking the intersection, right in front of Romio’s
Pizza & Pasta; a sign attached to the bike reads, “Bryce Lewis
Struck and Killed by a Dump Truck 9/7/2007. He was 19.” The second is
much more explicit—and eerie. It’s a sign painted right in the
middle of the bike lane where Lewis was killed; in all capital letters,
it reads, “A CYCLIST DIED HERE.” But the agitprop that biker activists
have put up in Bryce’s honor doesn’t tell the whole story.

Finding out exactly what happened the afternoon of September 7 is
close to impossible. One thing, however, is certain: Lewis was riding a
fixed-gear bike, an increasingly popular but notoriously dangerous
style of bicycle. Fixed-gear bikes, or “fixies,” are extremely difficult to slow
down on steep hills—like the one you take from Capitol Hill to
Eastlake Avenue and the University Bridge.

Brakeless fixed-gear bikes were never intended for ordinary
commuting. Originally, they were developed to race on
velodromes—circular tracks where the ability to build up speed is
all-important. Over time, they became popular among messengers,
messenger wannabes, and ordinary commuters. Although some bike shops
still cater mostly to track racers, others sell fixed-gear bikes to
commuters—”mostly hipster guys” and a few women, according to
Velo Bike Shop owner Lloyd Tamura.

In recent years, fixed-gear bikes have become ubiquitous in
hipster-saturated cities such as Seattle, Portland, Austin, and San
Francisco—valued as much for their appearance as for their
functionality. Tamura says sales of fixies have spiked in the past four
years—a statement backed up by employees of other local bike
shops. Several shops, including Counterbalance Bicycles on Queen Anne
and Mobius Cycle downtown, specialize in fixed-gear bikes.

Eyewitness accounts differ as to the speed of the cyclists and the
truck; whether Lewis and Caleb Hall, his riding partner, were riding
safely or aggressively; and whether the truck’s driver, a man whose
name has been redacted from police reports, stopped and looked before
turning right from Eastlake Avenue onto Fuhrman Avenue. We do know the
driver took a right turn directly into the cyclists’ path; that he hit
both of them—Lewis first, then Hall—and dragged them under
his truck for several feet; and that by the time he stopped, Lewis, who
was riding in front of Hall, was dead. The official cause of death was
blunt force trauma to the head; according to eyewitness Rich
Hinrichsen, Lewis, who ended up behind the truck’s right front tire,
was lying in “an impossible position,” with “blood pouring out of his
mouth and the back of his head… smashed.” According to all eyewitness
accounts, neither cyclist was wearing a helmet.

Those details are about the only ones on which all eyewitnesses
agree. From there, the accounts diverge. One witness told KING-5 news
that the cyclists were going upward of 30 miles an hour (not a
difficult speed to attain at the bottom of the steep hill that leads
down to Eastlake Avenue from Capitol Hill) and “shouldn’t have been
trying to pass a dump truck on the right-hand side on the curb to begin
with.” Seattle Police Department (SPD) spokesman Mark Jamieson recounts
a similar story based on reports from police investigators, noting that
eyewitnesses told police the cyclists, particularly Lewis, were “not
really following the rules. He [Lewis] was racing, riding very
aggressively, weaving in and out of traffic, and just not operating his
bike safely.”

However, Hinrichsen, who was jogging home from work and says he saw
the accident unfold about 100 feet in front of him, estimates the two
were turning onto Fuhrman Avenue at about 11 or 12 miles an
hour—more slowly than the truck, which he says turned from the
left-hand lane (not the curb lane, which was partly obstructed by a
construction zone) at about 15 miles an hour. “I did not anticipate
this event, and I was not really aware of the position of the truck
before the collision. I just recall seeing the truck plow into the
cyclists.” The truck driver, he adds, did “exceed the speed of the
cyclists. I was surprised by how fast the truck could negotiate that
turn.”

Dan Heidel, a member of Point 83—an online forum where
cyclists talk about the politics of cycling in Seattle, trade
maintenance and repair tips, and organize rides—points out that
eyewitnesses reported that the truck dragged the two cyclists nearly 25
feet. “That seems to indicate the dump truck was moving quite quickly,
to not be able to stop after a right turn,” Heidel says. Point 83 was
largely responsible for the ghost bike and bike-lane sign at the site
of the accident.

The crash site, an intersection that sees 30,000 cars a day, is
notoriously dangerous for cyclists (“scary as shit,” one Point 83
poster called it). Although Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT)
spokesman Gregg Hirakawa says SDOT has no specific records indicating
that the intersection of Eastlake and Fuhrman avenues is more dangerous
than other trouble spots. (SDOT doesn’t keep crash statistics by
intersection.) “This is a major connection [for cyclists], and it needs
improvement,” says David Hiller, advocacy director for the Cascade
Bicycle Club.

Five years ago, bike planners at the city identified Eastlake Avenue
as “the most heavily used north-south corridor” in Seattle and
“strongly recommended” addressing bike safety in the area. But since
then, the city has been slow to support innovative ideas that could
make bikers safer and more visible, including installing special
colored lanes to increase biker visibility, phased pedestrian lights
(which turn green before the main signal to give bikers a chance to
make it into an intersection), eliminating lanes of traffic (“we only
have a certain amount of roadway,” Hirakawa says), and bike-only
signals.

The city did just install a “green lane” in its Sodo truck facility
to see how well the green paint stands up to repeated pounding; if it
proves long-lasting, Hirakawa says, the city will install it in places
where there are “conflicts between cyclists and vehicles—turns
where cars and bikes are using the same piece of real estate.”

Bryce Lewis was, by all accounts, a generous, sweet, and
conscientious kid. Photos show a beaming, skinny boy just barely past
the age of high-school pimples, dressed up as a sailor for Halloween
and goofing with a guitar in front of a chalkboard. He had just moved
to Seattle from Denver a few weeks ago to join his close friend Hall
and attend the University of Washington. It was the first time he had
moved away from home. According to his uncle, Jose Duran (who posted
some remarks on the Point 83 forum but said it was too soon for him to
talk when I contacted him for this story), Lewis was “a very kind,
compassionate person” who played in a rock band and loved making films
and other kinds of art. A high-school friend from Denver describes
Lewis on his blog as “the best drummer I’ve ever heard, and the best
guitarist I’ve ever played with.”

Point 83’s Heidel, who met Lewis on bike rides a couple of times,
says he found the accident particularly tragic “because [Lewis] just
moved here and he moved here out of choice. He thought Seattle was a
great place. So there’s this kind of sense that we let him down.”

Ordinary road and mountain bikes—the kind you still see most
people riding—are equipped with what’s called a “free wheel” on
the back wheel—a kind of ratchet that allows the bike to coast
when you’re in motion, so that you don’t build up as much speed going
downhill.

On a fixie, the chain drives a cog that’s bolted, or fixed, directly
to the rear wheel. As a fixed-gear bike moves forward, the wheel moves
forward too, making it impossible to just stop pedaling. If you stop
pedaling abruptly, you fall off. To stop, you either use a front hand
brake (or two brakes, a front and a back), push backward against the
motion of the pedals, or lock the wheel in place (by lifting up your
back tire while in motion) and skid. Stopping without a brake from a
fast clip thus requires tremendous physical power.

John Yee, a salesman at Gregg’s Greenlake Cycle who has ridden a
fixed-gear bike for the last few months, likes the “fun, way-different”
feel of a fixed-gear bike. “It’s challenging. I like learning a new
skill.” Plus, “if you’re good at balancing, you can do track stands
[standing up on the bike while pushing back and forth] all day
long.”

One practical benefit of riding a fixed-gear bike is that it’s
simple. Maintenance and repairs are minimal because there aren’t many
moving parts, and aesthetically, they’re extremely beautiful to look
at. They’re also frequently less expensive than geared freewheel bikes,
for the same reason: Fewer parts means they’re easier to build.

But again, the reason most people who ride fixies say they do so
isn’t practical or aesthetic, it’s experiential: Fixed-gear bikes are
incredibly fun to ride. Because they transfer most of the mechanical
work of riding to the rider, riding a fixie just feel like a more
“pure” experience than riding a bike that does half the work for you.
You can’t stop pedaling, and stopping (particularly on a bike that
doesn’t have any brakes at all) becomes a challenge, both mentally and
physically. Go up and down a few hills on a single-speed, fixed-gear
bike and you’ll quickly find yourself in amazing physical condition.
Yee says that as long as “you’re a pretty good road biker, you
shouldn’t have any problems once you’ve been riding it for a couple of
months.”

I’ve been riding bikes for about 25 years. I stayed away from
fixed-gear bikes for the same reason I was initially nervous about
switching to a road bike: I was worried I wouldn’t be able to control
one. Taking a few different models out for a test ride the other day at
Tamura’s Velo, I had my fears confirmed. But I also saw exactly why so
many riders find these bikes appealing. On the first one I tried, a
Giant model with both a front and rear brake, I nearly crashed when I
instinctively tried to coast down a hill. The pedals kept moving, my
legs seized up, and it took a minute to recover my balance and keep
pedaling forward. After trying a few different fixed-gear bikes, I
eventually graduated to the Bianchi Pista—a stunningly gorgeous
silver bike with one fixed gear, no brakes, and handlebars so low you
have to look up to see the street. “You might want to try this one on
the sidewalk,” Tamura told me. It was by far the scariest bike I’ve
ever ridden—the experience of stopping by pushing back against
the pedals is the most counterintuitive thing a longtime free-wheel
biker could ever experience—but the power and control was
indescribable. I have to admit it—I want one. But I also know
that, for riders like me (those who don’t have lightning-quick reflexes
and quads of steel) they’re incredibly dangerous.

The Seattle Municipal Code requires every bike to be “equipped with
a brake that will enable the operator to make the braked wheel skid on
dry, level, clean pavement”—standard federal language that
applies in many cities across the country. Where the issue has gotten
murky is the definition of a “brake.” SDOT spokesman Hirakawa says all
that matters is whether you can stop. In contrast, the Seattle Police
Department seems to think some kind of separate brake is required, but
SPD spokesman Jamieson says, “It’s not a priority for us to go out and
cite people if they don’t have one.”

In cities such as Portland and Milwaukee, however, judges have ruled
that a “brake” means a hand brake, not leg power. Like “glass art”
bongs and “vases” that are used as crack pipes, however, most cities
don’t have strictures against selling fixed-gear bikes, although many
cities only sell them with brakes (with the implicit assumption that
the buyer will take them off). The result has been that some bikers
have ended up with tickets, while others have simply attached fake
brake levers and cables to their handlebars in hopes of eluding
unobservant police.

Mark Ginsberg, an attorney in Portland who has represented
messengers and other fixed-gear bike riders who have gotten tickets
from the city, says the only issue with fixed-gear bikes exists in the
minds of a handful of Portland police. “There has been no problem in
Portland concerning fixed-gear bicycles and safety and higher [rates
of] crashes,” Ginsberg says. “There happen to be two Portland police
officers who’ve taken this up as their personal issue and frankly,
they’re ticketing the same people over and over.” Judges, however, have
ruled against Ginsberg’s clients almost without exception, saying that
fixed-gear bikes do not have a “device for slowing.”

Indeed, as Heidel (who rides a regular road bike) points out: “If
you lose your foot contact with the pedals, you’re screwed.” If you’re
inexperienced, that’s doubly true. Which is why bike experts tell you
to spend lots of time practicing on dry, flat, even ground before going
out into traffic, much less up and down hills. Unfortunately, that’s
not what many people are doing.

Tamura calls fixies “one of those toys that people want right now.
You can’t tell them, ‘You’re not experienced enough to ride this.'”
Tamura says most of his customers who buy fixed-gear bikes elect to
remove the front brake, or to buy a model, like the Pista, with no
brake at all. Although Tamura says he wouldn’t “advise one way or
another” on whether to install a brake, he adds, “If you’re going down
a street and a car pulls in front of you, you don’t have time to slow
down. You’re going to fly off the bike. Riding downhill on one of
these—if you’re not experienced—is suicide.”

Lewis’s funeral was last Thursday in Denver. Seattle friends and
fellow bikers were waiting this week for Hall, who could not be reached
by press time, to return so they could hold a memorial ride celebrating
Lewis’s memory.

It’s unclear whether Lewis’s choice of a fixed-gear bike—a
bike that’s hard to stop on hills or in emergency situations, even for
the most strong and experienced rider—contributed to his death.
Is outlawing brakeless, fixed-gear bikes a solution? I don’t think so.
More safety—in the form of separate bike lanes; better, more
visible lane markings; and traffic signals that don’t favor drivers at
the expense of everyone else’s safety—is badly needed.

On the other hand, it’s up to bikers to look out for cars, because
bikers are the ones who always lose in bike/vehicle collisions. Fair?
No. Drivers should be more aware of cyclists, too—much more
aware.

But looking out for cars—hell, assuming they don’t see you and
don’t care if they hit you—is how you avoid being hit. To quote
cyclist Denny Trimble on the Point 83 forum: “Do yourselves a favor and
be ready for that truck to turn right any time you’re passing traffic
in the bike lane. Same goes for oncoming cars turning left—after
getting hit by one of those, I’m predisposed to think they’re all out
to get me.”