For the second time this month, tragedy has struck a cycle race in Britain through the death of a rider, with a competitor killed this morning following a collision with a caravan towed by a 4x4 during the City Road Club (Hull) Open 10 mile time trial. The victim has not yet been officially named.
The Hull Daily Mail has reported that according to police, the fatal incident took place at around 10.30am on the dual carriageway A63 near Brough, with City Road Club confirming to the newspaper that the rider killed was one of the 150 participants.
Racing was abandoned following the incident, and the road was closed between Welton Road at Brough and the A1034 at South Cave while emergency services, including police collision investigators, attended the scene.
Today's fatality comes less than four weeks after 23-year-old Herbalife Leisure Lakes rider Junior Heffernan was killed during the Severn Bridge Road Race after colliding with a vehicle on a descent.
In recent years several cyclists have been killed while taking part in time trials on dual carriageways, including Karl Austin, hit from behind by a lorry on the A50 in Derbyshire in June 2011, Cathy Ward of Solihull Road Club, struck by a car on the A46 near Stratford-upon-Avon in August 2010, and Major Gareth Rhys Evans, who was hit by a car on the A1 near St Neots, Cambridgeshire, in May 2009.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.