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Mike Hall during 2017 Indian Pacific Wheel Race.jpgIndian Pacific Wheel Race 2018 cancelled by organisers
Organisers of the India Pacific Wheel Race, which had his inaugural edition last year, have said it will not be held this year, citing the forthcoming inquest into the death of British ultra-cyclist Mike Hall, killed in a road traffic collision near Canberra in March last year.
In a message on the event’s website addressed to “Riders, dot-watchers, friends and fans,” Jesse Carlsson of organisers Dragon Face Pty Ltd said: “As you’re probably aware, the matter of Mike Hall’s death is before the ACT Coroner’s Court with an inquest likely to be held later in the year.
“Given this situation, and as more information about the potential outcomes of this process have become clear only very recently, it is with an extremely heavy heart that we cancel the 2018 Indian Pacific Wheel Race (IPWR) with immediate effect. That is, Dragon Face Pty Ltd will not be facilitating the riding of the IPWR in any way.”
Hall had been pursuing friend and rival Kristoff Allegaert to become the first rider to reach the finish at Sydney Opera House last year when he was reportedly struck from behind by a car.
The race, which had begun in Fremantle in Western Australia almost a fortnight previously, was immediately cancelled and tribute rides were held to the 35-year-old who was originally from Yorkshire but had moved to mid-Wales.
The fifth edition of the Transcontinental Race, the ultra-cycling event in Europe founded by Hall, went ahead in the summer and will return this year.
There will also be an Audax event in Wales in his memory, called This Is Not A Tour.
> Audax event in Wales next June in memory of Mike Hall
Organisers of the IWPR had planned for this year’s race to be a tribute to Hall, and in today’s message, they said: “The fact that this race has taken on a life of its own, strengthened the ultra-endurance cycling community and created an unparalleled interest in what is largely a very solitary pursuit is something of great pride.”
However, they added: “It’s for this same reason that this decision is not taken lightly, knowing how many people this will upset and even anger.
“All monies paid during the application process for the 2018 race will be refunded.
“Any person deciding to ride the IPWR course as their own endurance or bike touring challenge chooses to do so individually.
“No information to assist or facilitate such pursuits will be provided. Dragon Face Pty Ltd has no association with GPS tracking companies that riders may use while bike touring.
The announcement concluded: “Mike Hall was a source of inspiration to so many. The phrase ‘be more Mike’ is something many of us have clung to in the weeks and months following his untimely death.
“Revisit that and please channel any of the
negative energy associated with the cancellation of the IPWR into something that Mike would be proud of. Live because you can.”
> Mike Hall featured in 90-minute documentary about Indian-Pacific Wheel Race
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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17 comments
Having watched that film where someone cycled themselves blind, it all seems a bit crackers.
If people were having marathon driving contests like this, they'd be in court if pulled over in a state of exhaustion. As a road user, regardless of whether you have a metal shell or you'll only 'hurt yourself' on a bike, you have a responsibility to use it in a state of awareness, not effectively drunk with tiredness.
Agree with minimum rest periods (and not necessarily in one lump) but often riding at night is safer and less draining due to prevailing weather conditions.
Saying you must sleep/rest between x and y also ignores that your sleep pattern is already out of kilter when doing an endurqnce event, even on a 48 hour event you're already having rest/snooze breaks much different to what one considers 'normal', go ing further/longer only pushes that even more away from the norm.
Some environments (not cycling related) and I've slept 8am-3pm but that was after a day or three of pushing on further each day.
As for the incident itself, a dead man tells no tales, tracker or no, there's only one real side to the story.
The tracker could be dismissed as not being accurate enough to be admissible for either party in terms of allaying blame but whatever the driver says should at least reasonably tally up with it but to use it to say he was all over the road at that time when there is evidence to support these devices show zigzagging even when going dead straight should be able to get the use in court as inadmissible.
The other thing to note is the outright lie by the President of the Canberra cycling club Nathan Edwardsin stated that Canberra was safer than Melbourne or Sydney but omitted the fact that ACT as a whole has got worse for cycling incidents over the years and factually is the 1st or 2nd worst in the country (I need to recheck my stats later). I remember writing to the author of the piece in the Canberra Times to tell him what a load of bull it was that ACT roads wete safe/r compared to other states as Edwardson had made out and sent him the stats. I never got a reply.
You both make good points.
I still hold the belief that regardless of how tired Mike was, anything short of him falling off his bike into the path of the vehicle or swerving into the path of the vehicle out of sheer exhaustion leaves the blame fairly and squarely in the lap of the driver. (A dark part of me wants to write "just like their cellphone probably was" but let's not get into that...).
Am I wrong in thinking that, as a rule of thumb (at least in the countries where I have lived) if you rear end someone the blame is by default placed on you until you can give evidence to exonerate yourself?
All lof this talk of Mike or the organisers being even slightly to blame for this is angrying up my blood something awful.
Mike was hit, from behind on a very, very (very) straight piece of road.
All road users have a duty of care to (a) look where they are going & bloody well pay attention, (b) give plenty room when overtaking and (c) drive within the established speed limits.
If the driver had been doing these things then Mike would still be here today, pedaling along nicely.
Ok, this is only my belief, but fuck it, believing is good enough for millions of religious types, so why can't I?
Yes, but this is Australia. They hate all road users (if you think the attitude to cyclists from NSW Police is terrible, their motorised vehicle laws are similarly draconian). I love ultracycling because it pushes human endurance but riding exhausted is inherently unsafe. It's illegal to drive tired, the Aussies will undoubtedly see no difference between cycling and driving, despite the fact that the risk is largely all on the cyclist.
You are of course right... but there is right and then there is what happens in a court of law etc.
Mike's physical state will definitely be brought up in the inquest and I am sure that the drivers defence team will have jumped on this almost instantly.
As you say, on a long straight piece of wide road, there should be no excuses for not seeing someone. However it isn't in all reality going to be too hard for the defence team to sow a sufficient seed of doubt in any jury this goes in front of.
The more I think about it, the more I suspect the focus is going to be turning to the organisers here.
Maybe a safeguard for future events would be to not allow any travel to be recorded between the hours of say 11.00pm and 5.00am each day. This would force competitors to have at least six hours rest per 24hour period.
I do think that the race organisers have a duty of care to the participants and allowing/encouraging riders to compete when dangerously fatigued is a breach of that duty.
Maybe mandatory rest periods could be introduced?
You know I've not seen it mentioned anywhere before but with GPS tracks automatically being recorded on GPS devices these days, and the detail that they show the manner of the riding, it would have been a total giveaway in my opinion. I'm not talking about the tracker as they aren't nearly as accurate. If a GPS device has clear site of the satellites you can see when a cyclist is swerving left and right. The only discrepency would have been if the gps device was in the pocket where a gps track would zigzag.
If Mike's recorded gps track had been consistently straight prior to the incident then surely the event would be in the clear and able to go ahead?
Did the investigators have the foresight to check the gps device? Surely they must have but there's been no mention of what could be critical evidence.
As you said, that's not how the spot tracker works as it only records and sends at fairly large intervals compared to a Garmin for example. Secondly, my Garmin frequently shows me "weaving" when I've ridden in a straight line due to GPS drift, obscured satelites etc so it's hardly forensic. There's enough "evidence" of Mike saying he was having vision issues and plenty of proof about his sleeping patterns from the spot tracker than it's likely that will be the focus of attention assuming the driver saw him and aimed to give him enough room. Only access to the cornoners report will answer that though.
There's obviously some back story here.
“Any person deciding to ride the IPWR course as their own endurance or bike touring challenge chooses to do so individually.
“No information to assist or facilitate such pursuits will be provided. Dragon Face Pty Ltd has no association with GPS tracking companies that riders may use while bike touring.
Dragon Face are making it quite obvious that they are having nothing to do with the IPWR in it's present format.
I thought that the inquest was taking some time - one bike, one car, one witness? (the driver). Presumably the relevant state police force are making a decent fist of the investigation. The thing is with dot trackers, social media, personal electronic devices etc there is lots to go on. It would be easy to identify the number of stops/rests made etc, possibly even the actual amount of sleep Mike HALL had had prior to the accident. (I've seen some pretty comprehensive blog posts from the TCR on 'out of saddle' timings and calorie consumption).
IIRC there had been some tweets during the race about the speed of motor vehicles on the road used. How had the organisers responded to this information? During the TCR no.5 2017, one road was made out of bounds during the race due to rider feedback over safety concerns. The organisers will always have a duty of care and it is in their power to stop a race if needed.
Given how awful the road conditions seem to have been (with regards to driver behaviour) I think this was a sensible decision.
In the same way that the end point for the TCR was moved to improve safety for riders, running an event which does not give the riders any choice about safe routes is simply not responsible.
Is there any more on this? Is this suggesting Dragon Face may potentially be facing charges relating to the incident?
I don't see how they could be held responsible, if Mr Hall was hit from behind by a motorist...?
For me, this could be more about the current format of these ultra-endurance events. When push comes to shove, these are seriously sleep deprived athletes competing on open highways.
The concept of the event is to take the quickest, most immediate route from point to point in the quickest time possible. That doesn't exactly encourage riders to use the safest routes available to them.
If the inquest cites multiple witnesses who say that Hall was weaving all over the road seemingly not in control of his bike (I am in no way saying that is what happened), then I can see why the organiser of such an event is going to be answering some awkward questions.
Not just witnesses.
If you watch the documentary made afterwards, there's some pretty blatant footage of Mike Hall weaving all over the road, and his physical state (exhausted):
https://youtu.be/G5b9or1rGp8
You can just imagine how that would pan out in court in this country. I bet the defence has been pawing over (yes, pawing) over that since it was released.
Mike Hall was second in the race. Second on the road. Therefore this cannot be true, unless Kristof Allegaert himself (in first) had tweeted.
I believe James Hayden contacted the TCR organisers himself about the dangerous conditions on the E81. That was very heavy traffic, not an otherwise-empty, almost-perfectly-straight, wide road such as Mike Hall was cycling on.
Unfortunately Dottigirl, this can be true
https://twitter.com/normally_human/status/845874281955258370?lang=en
IANAL but I guess that depends on Australian law - could they possibly be held partially reponsible for
(a) organising a race on open public roads (not sure of legality of this in Oz)
(b) failing a duty of care by allowing riders to continue on when fatigued