Death of Ottawa Area Cyclist

[Trixiee]

Have my fellow Canadains heard the news of this tragic murder? If so, what are we going to do about it? Do we change the way we ride? Are there safety strategies we should be using? How can we prevent this from ever happening again?

[waterlilli]

Could you fill us in on what happened?

[han-grrl]

Last week, a 27 year old woman, left her house for a short bike ride. She was to return an hour and a half later, but my early evening, her mom started to worry when her daughter hadn't shown up. her family went looking for her, as the police wouldn't consider her officially missing until 24 hours later. The search went on for 6 days (i believe). They found her body by a creek near some bike trails. it is believed that the person who attacked her may have been stalking the women in the area in the last little while.

a number of women go riding alone in this area, as with the many bike paths in our region. This incident has made many people nervous and many women are opting to bike with a buddy rather than riding alone.

[Trixiee]

I have no "bike buddies", and have to rely on my own wits when biking and running. I live in a rural area, and most people know me in the area in which I bike and run, so I feel relatively safe near home. But I also travel a lot throughout Ontario. I used to love to bring my bike with me, and try out a few lonely roads in the evening. I no longer feel I can do that. This makes me really sad.

[MightyMitre]

Hi Trixiee. Sorry you don't feel comfortable with riding out alone any more. :( This is an upsetting stories and is bound to make riders think twice. However, your post mentions the girl in question was being stalked, which is not an everyday occurence.

I'm sure you do already, but why not leave very precise details of where you're going. You could leave a map with the route marked on it and give an approximate time you'll be back. There's always occasions when you might not be back exactly when you planned, but you could come to an arragenment with those-at-home so you have some lee-way on your arrival time, so they don't panic if you happen to be back half an hour late.

I'm sure you already do this as well but a mobile comes in handy - if you have a bad fall or even if you had an mechanical you couldn't fix.

Also, while I totally understand you nervousness, this sort of this doesn't happen every day. There will always be the unexpected but with a bit of common sense - which I'm quite sure you have, and knowing when you're taking an unnecesary risk I'm sure you'll be fine.

Alternativley, why not look out some local bike groups. There may be other girls who previously rode alone who might now be looking for a buddy.

[assassin__x]

I second the leaving info that you're going out riding with someone suggestion. I feel a little silly doing it sometimes, but I ride by myself very often and it's not hard to tell your neighbours where you're going on the way out. I'll also ride on trails and roads that are a little more heavily trafficked if I'll be by myself (if I get hurt, someone will be along to find me).

One thing that some people think that I'm crazy for is going out (usually for climbing) with people from the internet. Well, I've yet to murdered (most people that I've been out with have been great), but I will leave the contact info that I have for the person I'm going out with a friend.

You can't hold back because something might happen (if it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't have gone out climbing at all this summer), but do take the precautions to minimize risk.

[Veronica]

I met a great riding buddy through this site. I probably wouldn't have done so much riding in the early summer if Ihadn't had a partner.

Veronica