PicoBlog

Coordinates: 47.51460° N, 122.39124° W

“Steve was one of the kindest persons I have ever met,” John Kugler

The Cascade Bicycle Club said Steve Hulsman was a ride leader for more than a decade. Hulsman was killed while biking on Dec. 21.

“He shared everything, whether it was knowledge or cycling experience. It was very much who he was, just an openhearted person,” said David Longdon, who had been riding with Hulsman since 2007. “Folks who were brave enough to sign up for his ride, if they needed help, he was very encouraging,” Longdon said. “Everybody valued his contributions to this part of their recreational lives.”

"Steve was a devoted Cascade ride leader for more than a decade and he touched the lives of thousands and thousands of people who rode behind and alongside him," the Cascade Bicycle Club said in a statement. "... Unfortunately this terrible incident once again shows how dangerous our roadways have become for vulnerable road users including people bicycling and walking."

“Steven Hulsman was biking a hilly route he has ridden countless times when someone driving collided with him and killed him Thursday evening. He was 66. Our condolences to his friends and family. Hulsman was a husband, father and grandfather. He loved riding hills like this one, friends say, and he was scheduled to lead a Cascade Bicycle Club free group ride along this route today (December 23). His friend and ride co-leader John Kugler lead the ride in his absence as a memorial to Steven.” Tom Fucoloro, Seattle Bike Blog

“Hulsman helped organize remote rides near Mount Rainier or Chelan,” David Longdon said, “and cooked his companions homemade pesto paired with his favorite red wines.”

“That was so tragic. He was always larger than life. The Italian Dinner at Holy Rosary Church was always equated to Steve Hulsman. To have a life snuffed out like that to one who was always known to be dynamic and to have done so much good, was and is a tragedy.” Mike Go

I did not know Steve but I know a handful of people who knew him well and adored him. They all had their own stories about him and to a person thought he was wonderful. This is where he left everyone who loved him, plucked from the world they shared with him when a collision with an SUV broke his body and bicycle, and released his generous spirit from this Earthly realm.

Jan 10, 2018

Link: Ghost Bikes short film by Ethan Brooks on Vimeo

Video by Ethan Brooks

“What if, rather than in cemeteries, tombstones were placed at the exact location of the deceased’s final moments? That’s the premise of the ghost bike: a white bicycle, often covered with flowers and a plaque, that is chained to a fence or a street sign as a memorial of a life lost in a cycling accident there. Since the first ghost bike was anointed by a bike mechanic who witnessed an accident in 2003 in St. Louis, Missouri, the project has spread to over 200 major cities around the world. But nowhere are ghost bikes more common than in New York City, where a dedicated team of volunteers builds and maintains the city’s hundreds of memorials. According to the project’s website, the white bikes “serve as reminders of the tragedy that took place on an otherwise anonymous street corner, and as quiet statements in support of cyclists' right to safe travel.”

Ethan Brooks’s short documentary, Ghost Bike, tells Molberg’s story. Much like the spectral bikes themselves, the film renders a personal tragedy universal.

“When you pass a ghost bike, there's always this moment of introspection,” Brooks told The Atlantic. “No matter how comfortable you are on the road, or absorbed in your own thoughts, a ghost bike snaps you back to reality. The placement of each bike, in the very spot where a cyclist was killed, makes the memorial personal, especially if you pass it often.”

Or, as Molberg says in the film, “it’s a reminder that I could end up as a ghost bike in just a second.”

Maybe you’ve seen one of these ghost bikes somewhere and wondered just what they were all about. I guess I had a sense, but certainly not clarity …not until I actually parked my car near this one on a rainy day and walked back to it to pay my respects. The fresh flowers, the sporadic waves of traffic (people ever in a hurry), the sense both of chaotic jumble and finality. The momentary silences. 46th Ave. SW and Marine View Drive, yet another departure gate. I needed to know more so I did a bit of reading, watched the short film which you can access through the link posted above.

Drive safe. Pay attention. Pause long enough to feel something. Lives depend on it.

Steve Hulsman. May his memory be a blessing.

When my mother died in a car wreck that almost took my sister, as well, I needed to go and stand at that place where it happened. I needed to see it with my own eyes, walk that stretch of road, again and again, try to understand. I needed desperately to get a sense of that place where she took her exit from the world that we who were left behind continue to wake and sleep in.

I did not build her a memorial at the crash site. We didn't have that sort of relationship anymore. But even more so, because she was driving drunk and in a jealous rage at the moment of her departure. She did not leave those of us who loved her on good terms.

I crawled in through the broken window at the junkyard, in sweltering heat to sit there inside the crushed car she died in, needing to feel something more, understand better, but in the end, did not ache to leave some mark of loyalty in the world for her. Not there. Not like that.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then how acutely aware of others’ tributes, their very personal and heartfelt exit markers I have been, ever since. And so, as the spirit moves me, I pull over. I look for a safe place to stop. I stand with the departed and with those left behind trying to make sense of things, bowing at their alters, reading their notes of loss and gratitude, trying to honor their hints and often bumbling efforts to memorialize their loved ones' passages.

From time to time I'll add another of these memorials, here. It won't make a lick of sense to some, but perfect sense to others. I’m ok with that. There are no written rules for this sort of thing, as far as I know, and yet, each Roadside Memorial I've encountered, whether alongside some crumbling, two lane road in rural Thailand or a busy freeway in urban Illinois, each always has some elements in common, the most discernible of which is a profound need to express one's sense of grief and loss. After all these years I still find it worth the effort to pull over, get out …then to listen to whatever voices might be carried on the breeze, touch the edge of someone else’s tale of loss, say thank you to a world big enough and imaginative enough to allow this possibility, too. Thanks for pausing here with me…

David E. Perry

ncG1vNJzZmickau2pbHPnqmrsV6owqO%2F05qapGaTpLpwvI6gn6irpGKvqrfEZqmiqF2owabCxGafrqSjoq6v