Bicyclists in silent support of officer

Eric Leake

Thursday, July 21, 2005 | 10:43 a.m.

Cyclists rode through Red Rock Canyon in silence this morning to support a Metro Police officer who was critically injured after a hit-and-run collision Wednesday.

The victim, Blue Diamond resident Don Albietz, rode State Route 159 regularly, people who knew him said.

The early-morning Ride of Silence honored cyclists injured or killed on roadways and promoted their safety.

Cyclist James Cullen said attention and care was especially needed on State Route 159 through Red Rock Canyon where the cyclist was hit Wednesday.

"That road is the mecca for bicycle riders out here in Las Vegas," he said.

Cullen, a retired geologist, coordinated the first annual Ride of Silence in Las Vegas in May. He planned an additional ride for today after he heard of Wednesday's collision.

The ride started at 6 a.m. at Town Center Drive and Charleston Boulevard, continued to the Red Rock Canyon overlook, and returned. The riders rode slowly, at no more than 12 mph, and side by side.

Cullen said he does not personally know Albietz, but that the cycling community rallied as a closed-knit group.

"He's a very competitive cyclist, we know that," Cullen said. "Apparently he's really, really good."

Albietz was riding a bicycle on the shoulder of the road east through Red Rock Canyon about 6 a.m. Wednesday when he was hit by flatbed tractor-trailer carrying a crushed car and scrap metal, Nevada Highway Patrol reported.

"He apparently for unknown reasons struck the bike from behind," said Trooper Angie Chavera, a Highway Patrol spokeswoman.

The driver pulled over, she said, but after another car stopped, he got back into the truck and drove away.

"He knows what he did. He took off," Chavera said. "This is above and beyond an accident. This person committed a crime."

The tractor-trailer is described as a 1996 flatbed with a white tractor and California plates 4CA8957. It should show damage from the collision on the right front.

Chavera said she would attend today's ride in support of the cyclists.

"We support the bicyclists out there. There's no reason that anybody should worry about riding their bicycle out there," she said.

Chavera said the road is generally safe but that careless drivers may not pay enough attention to cyclists. In fact, she said, Wednesday's collision occurred "right where there's a sign that says share the road with bicyclists."

Cyclists who regularly ride the road complained that they have seen commercial and construction vehicles using the route to bypass heavy traffic along State Route 160 near Rainbow Boulevard.

"Over the past years traffic on that road has gotten absolutely abysmal," Cullen said of the route through Red Rock Canyon.

"The real problem is not so much the roads or the bicycle paths, it's the motorists themselves," he said. "They don't know how to behave around cyclists."

Doug Murray is president of the Las Vegas Valley Bike Club and treasurer of the Silver State Bicycle Coalition, two organizations represented at today's ride.

He said the route through Red Rock Canyon is a favorite for sight-seeing and recreation, and that it needs to be treated as such, with a lower speed limit.

"We're saying this is a scenic byway," Murray said. "We have tourists stopped here on the weekend to feed burros."

Murray said he has had friends who have been injured and killed in accidents while cycling. Such accidents, he said, underscore the need to "heighten the awareness that cyclists are on the road."

The last cyclist death on State Route 159 occurred in May 2003 in a collision involving a motorcycle.

Anyone with information related to Wednesday's collision should call the Highway Patrol at 486-4100.