south west cycle club suffered a loss yesterday with one of their riders being killed while riding home from work.  darren strudwick was a well liked and respected member of their club and our condolences go to his family, friends and club. 

we have a good relationship with the south west club as we share very similar views on how a club should be run and what our goals are.  we hope that they can get through this tough time and rally together to support each other. 

we have been very lucky in the last 6 years that i have been here, that we haven’t had to deal with anything this serious.  however, it is a reminder of just how fragile we are out there on the roads and we must not put ourselves at a higher risk than we need to.  keeping the group together is a good way to maintain our presence on the road as individual riders risk having cars try to squeeze past.  if you are riding solo to work, etc, then make sure you make yourself known (i.e. all black at night is just asking for trouble), don’t do anything silly and use the bike path during peak hour if you can.

take care out there.