Cross-country cyclist Roger Grooters will be honored by a silent memorial bicycle ride in Pensacola Beach, Florida, on Sunday.
The 66-year-old cyclist was struck and killed last week near Panama City, about 300 miles from finishing a bike tour across the southern tier to raise money for victims of the BP oil spill.
He set off by bicycle from Oceanside, California, on Sept 10, followed by his wife, Vicki, in a car. She was behind him on Oct. 6 along Florida State Road 20, west of State Road 77 near Crystal Lake, when a motorist in a pickup truck struck him.
Road shoulder
According to reports, the pickup drove onto the shoulder of the road and hit the back of Grooters's bicycle. The collision knocked Grooters off his bike and into a ditch. His wife rushed to his aid, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Florida Highway Patrol says an investigation is continuing.
Grooters kept a blog — Roger's Cross Country Ride — of his bike trip. He was averaging about 100 miles a day when he wrote, just a few days before the crash, about the conditions of the roads through Louisiana and Florida:
“Sufficient road shoulders are essential for my riding safety. On many of the roads, one county or parish will have a great shoulder and the next will have nothing. When Vicki is following with flashers on, most drivers have been very courteous and pass nice and wide. “
Need to help
Grooters had retired from his position as executive director of Louisiana State University's Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes. He had watched the Gulf Coast deteriorate after being wracked by hurricanes, recession, and most recently the BP oil spill.
Passing along the Louisiana coast, he said that “reminders of the oil spill are still evident with workers combing the sand for tar balls and shrimp boats in the harbour with oil booms piled on the shoreline.”
Earlier, he explained the reason for undertaking bike tour to raise pledges of one-cent per mile, or about $32:
“Our communities are experiencing growing numbers of homeless (including children), housing foreclosures, personal and business bankruptcies, divorce and suicide. The natural beauty of our coastline has been damaged and in some areas lost forever. Animal, plant and sea life have been threatened, some to the point of extinction. The loss of these natural resources has caused a loss of jobs and for some a loss of a way of life.The need for help is real and is great.”
Donations and memorial
Check to the oil spill victims can be made to Gulf Breeze U.M.C., 75 Fairpoint Drive, Gulf Breeze, FL 32561 with “Oil Spill Response” in the memo or go to http://www.gbumc.org/ and click on the red “Give Now” button. Then fill out the form with “Oil Spill Response” in the “other” category.
The memorial ride is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Quietwater Beach parking lot, head east to the first parking lot past Portofino, and then return. More details at Roger's Cross Country Ride website and the sponsors, West Florida Wheelmen Bicycle Club.
Later, a group of cyclists plans to finish his cross-country bike tour to Jacksonville, Florida, and dip the front tire of his bicycle into the Atlantic Ocean, said his 31-year-old son, Ben.
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