Broken pavement on Roberts Creek’s Lower Road has been cited by witnesses as the cause of a cyclist’s fall on April 26.
The incident put experienced bike enthusiast Pamela Lee in Sechelt Hospital for two days while she was treated for a broken collar bone, five broken ribs, lacerations to her head and a concussion.
Lee doesn’t recall what happened. She told Coast Reporter that as she was travelling by e-bike from her Roberts Creek home to Gibsons at about 8:15 a.m., a vehicle was following behind her. Travelling in that car were Larry and Mary Braun.
As the three travelled near the Camp Byng site, Mary said she saw the cyclist approach an area where “the pavement is bumpy and broken up. She hit that and started to wobble. I can only assume she put on her brakes, as she was already going down the hill. She went over the handlebars of the bike.”
The Brauns stopped to render first aid and called 911. While they assisted Lee, her partner Stephen Forgacs arrived by bike at the scene. He was riding back home from a trip to Gibsons, and explained in an interview on May 2, that after he passed Gulf Road travelling west, he came across a few cars stopped, an ambulance and then saw Pam’s bike in the middle of the road.
“There was literally a thin stream of blood running down the hill from where she was lying,” Forgacs said. “She was bleeding profusely from a head injury. She was conscious but really out of it… The beanie she wore beneath her helmet was saturated with blood.”
As a Robert Creek resident of more than six years, Forgacs states that most of Lower Road has no shoulder or shoulders are often covered with debris.
Lee had travelled on an almost daily basis along Lower Road and had ridden the route including the accident site on her “skinny-tired road bike” two days before without incident. An active mountain biker, road and touring cyclist, she said she is “terrified” to ride the route again. “I’m afraid to get back on my bike for a road ride. I won’t ride alone again.”
Those statements are a sharp contrast from how she felt about travelling under pedal power before the crash. “Cycling has been a joy for me,” she said. “It’s a sense of freedom, it’s like this gentle flowing across the surface… just wonderful, a pace that you can control.”
Forgacs, an avid cyclist and a board member with Transportation Choices Sunshine Coast (TraC) accompanied Lee to the hospital and will be with her as she travels to Lions Gate Hospital on May 4 for an appointment with the orthopedic team to assess her injured shoulder.
He said he went from volunteering with TraC to serving on the board starting last November to help address “the complete absence of safe cycling and pedestrian infrastructure between Gibsons and Sechelt.
“If you could ride that stretch safely, so many people would do it,” he said. “With the advent of E-bikes, cycling has become a transportation option for so many people.” He believes improved cycling infrastructure would have recreation and commuting benefits and could be a huge tourist draw for the Coast.
“For driving, we have the highway of a have-not province and for cycling infrastructure along the highway corridor, we are still in the stone age. It is primitive and it is unsafe.
“The challenge is that we need local governments to step up and champion multi-use infrastructure along the highway corridor because a small non-profit like TraC can’t do it alone.“ Forgacs said.
