Salida – A Boulder woman with a chronic crippling illness died Thursday afternoon in a collision with a motor home as she participated in the Ride the Rockies bike tour.
The Colorado State Patrol said Diane Woolwine, 65, was off the tour’s designated route and was headed toward her motel in Salida on busy U.S. 50 about 2:30 p.m. when she hit the motor home and was pulled under its back wheel. Trooper Brian Lyons said she died instantly.
The news shocked the usual jovial daily gathering of tour participants into stunned silence as tour director Paul Balaguer announced her death.
“Our hearts go out to her family,” Balaguer said after he called for a moment of silence.
Balaguer said Woolwine had gone off the designated 84-mile route from Alamosa to Salida at Poncha Springs. She rode on the highway for the last 5 miles with a group of five other cyclists rather than follow the tour’s less-traveled residential route.
Lyons, the patrol’s accident- reconstruction specialist for the Salida area, said a mark on the side of the motor home, driven by Buck Morris, 66, of Cortez, showed Woolwine’s bicycle handlebar contacted the side of the vehicle as she rode in the traffic lane rather than the bike lane.
Lyons said his initial investigation indicated that the accident was caused by bicyclist error and said no charges are pending against Morris.
Woolwine had taken part in the Ride the Rockies tour nearly every year since 1990, her friends said, and had trained for and entered the annual tour to help in overcoming her crippling arthritis. She was riding this year’s tour with her daughter, Leishia Woolwine, who was not with her when the accident happened.
“She lived to ride, and she was an inspiration to us all,” said David Oppenheimer of Boulder, a longtime friend and one of the riders with Woolwine when she died.
In the tour’s 21-year run, Woolwine is believed to be the second cyclist killed during the ride.
In 1994, a 15-year-old Aurora rider died near Walsenburg after he veered into a traffic lane and was struck by a dump truck.
On Thursday, four cyclists were taken to hospitals after accidents. Three were treated and released, and the fourth was airlifted to Swedish Medical Center in Denver with severe facial lacerations. She was reported in stable condition.
There were a number of other “road rash” injuries Thursday because cyclists were riding in pace lines, in which one cyclist puts the front wheel of a bike inches behind another bike. Balaguer warned against the practice.
