PRESS

CYCLISTS HONOR FALLEN FRIENDS BY TAKING 'RIDE OF SILENCE'
By TANIA VALDEMORO
tania_valdemoro@pbpost.com
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Copyright (c) 2005, THE PALM BEACH POST

Len Handel got back on his bike to prove a point. "I'm here. I'm alive," he said, 22 months after a car hit him right in front of Wellington Regional Medical Center.

Handel, who belongs to the West Palm Beach Bike Club, was on his way to Wellington to join the group's weekly Wednesday morning ride. Instead, a Trauma Hawk helicopter took the bike instructor to Delray Medical Center. His pelvis had been shattered.

After enduring one operation to put his pelvis back together and two more to replace his left hip, Handel prepared himself for Wednesday night's "Ride of Silence," to honor his friend Marc Webb. Webb, 55, of Royal Palm Beach, was struck and killed on his bike by a landscaping truck several months after Handel's injury.

The "Ride of Silence" made its Florida debut Wednesday in Boca Raton and Orlando.

In Boca Raton, about 150 cyclists from Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties honored loved ones and friends during a 12-mile ride that began at 7 p.m.

They rode slowly and in silence along a circuit that wound around Military Trail, Spanish River Boulevard, Boca Raton Boulevard, Palmetto Park Road and Patch Reef Trail.

Cyclists from more than 100 cities in the United States, Europe and South America also participated in rides Wednesday.

Chris Phelan staged the first ride in Dallas in 2003 to honor his friend, an endurance cyclist, who died after the mirror of a passing bus hit him.

The purpose of the ride is to make people more aware that cyclists share the road with motorists and traffic rules must be respected, said Barry Hersh, president of Ride of Silence Florida Inc.

Hersh, who organized the local ride, chose Boca Raton because of its national reputation as a "bicycle-friendly community."

Eight years ago, the state widened State Road A1A in Boca Raton north to Highland Beach to include bike lanes. The city has more bike lanes than any other in Palm Beach County. However, it abandoned a plan last year to add bike lanes on a four-block link between the Intracoastal Waterway and A1A when officials determined that the road belonged to the county, not the city, said Joy Puerta, the city's bicycle/pedestrian coordinator.

Homeowners and cyclists in Delray Beach, meanwhile, have been embroiled in a two-year fight over bike lanes since the Florida Department of Transportation first announced its plans to widen A1A.

The state ended the fight Friday when it decided to build paved shoulders ranging from 3 to 5 feet on AIA in Delray Beach.

DOT Project Manager Sonny Abia said construction of the paved shoulders and accompanying 6-foot-wide sidewalks probably will begin in the summer of 2007 and finish a year later.

Staff writer Meghan Meyer contributed to this story.