Kona–The Bike Leg

The bike leg is the hardest to watch as a spectator because there are so few vantage points.  There’s a quick spectator-friendly out’n’back on Kuakini Highway before the route turns up to Queen Kaahumanu (“Queen K”) Highway and the cyclists disappear for 4 or 5 hours. The next time one can see them is on the fast descent back to T-2, which we passed up to have a good vantage point for the run.

A minute or so after this picture was taken, a spectator tried to cross the road and was impaled by a bike. She was seriously injured, and lay in the middle of the street for 20 or 30 minutes, attended by emergency personnel, while bikes whizzed by in each direction.

While we were watching the out’n’back along Kuakini, several spectators dashed across the road between cyclists.  One woman got a late start and 3 cyclists, riding abreast, came around a downhill turn at 30 mph.  The inside cyclist had no where to go and T-boned the woman, and, amid a POW!, they ended up in a heap on the ground.  The cyclist jumped up, gingerly checked out himself and his bike (the pow! was a blown tire), and slowly made his way to the side of the road.  Someone ran to him with a tire pump, and others in the crowd shouted, “No, no!  No help allowed!”

Meanwhile, the woman stayed down in the road and emergency personnel rushed to her side, while a police officer stepped into the road to slow down and re-direct oncoming cyclists.  She never moved, and after 20 or 30 minutes, they were able to put her on a body board, then on a stretcher, and roll her down the block to a waiting ambulance. Bikes continued to fly by.

The cyclist fixed his tire and, after 12 or 15 minutes of lost time (and some cursing), remounted his bike to the cheers of the crowd.

 


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