Like a rolling array of spring flowers, hundreds of cyclists in colorful jerseys and T-shirts fanned out in a silent ride from Longmont to Niwot and back Thursday night, their black armbands emphasizing the message many wore on their backs.
“In Memory of Scott Kornfield,” the signs read. “Please share the road.”
Kornfield, 28, was a bike racer in the first hour of a Memorial Day training ride heading north on U.S. 36 when 17-year-old Chandler Thorpe of Boulder, who was heading south just before 8 a.m., swerved into Kornfield, hitting him head-on.
The circumstances of Kornfield’s death resembled an accident 11 days before that claimed the life of Dan Savage, 64, a cyclist from Aurora. He was riding on Squaw Pass Road near Evergreen on May 19 when 25-year-old Frederick Ahlquist of Evergreen passed two cars and then struck him.
Both accidents left widows to grieve.
“He took my husband’s life,” Kristyn Kornfield, 26, said of Thorpe. “He needs to know what this has done. He needs to know how much I’m hurting right now and feel that, just for a second.”
For now, she clings to memories: Scott Kornfield’s penchant for peanut-butter ice cream and Apple computers; how he never met a stranger.
“He had such enthusiasm, zest for life,” Kornfield said of her husband. “He was always doing what he loved.”
Thursday evening, looking over the group of cyclists that showed up to offer support, she could not contain her tears.
In Aurora, Linda Savage, 56, knows that pain. She cried so much after her husband’s death, Savage said, that the next day, she had a heart attack. “I kept saying, ‘It feels like my heart is literally breaking,”‘ she recalled.
Like Kornfield, she doesn’t want her husband’s life or death to have been in vain.
“A quarter-mile from the accident, there’s a big rectangular yellow sign that says, ‘Share the road,”‘ Savage said. “I want him (Ahlquist) to do something to help other people. It might help him heal as well.”
Records show Ahlquist faces a misdemeanor traffic offense of careless driving with death or injury, although Jefferson County District Attorney Scott Storey said that the Colorado Highway Patrol’s case will be reviewed and could be refiled.
“We may decide it should be a felony,” Storey said Thursday.
Regarding Thorpe, a Highway Patrol report states he had apparently fallen asleep. A spokesman said drugs and alcohol do not appear to have been factors. Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacy said charges are pending and could range from careless driving resulting in death or injury to vehicular homicide.
A misdemeanor traffic offense of careless driving with death or injury can carry from 10 days up to one year in jail, while a felony charge of vehicular homicide can carry from two to six years in prison.
Neither Thorpe or Ahlquist could be reached for comment.
Nate Llerandi, 36, a software account executive who also is a cycling trainer, was riding with Korn field at the time of the accident. “This was in no way, shape or form something that happened out of lack of biker safety,” Llerandi said. “There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Denver Post researcher Barbara Hudson contributed to this report.
Staff writer Amy Herdy can be reached at aherdy@denverpost.com or 303-820-1752.
