The woman who died after being struck by a pickup truck in Central Saanich during a bike race on Sunday was a two-time provincial cyclocross winner who “lit up the start line” with her jokes, her spouse says.
Lindsay Burgess was struck in the intersection of Central Saanich and Tanner Roads on Sunday morning while riding in the ninth annual Tripleshot CrossFondo, a mostly off-road event on trails and private property that raises money for Tripleshot Cycling Club’s youth training program.
The 41-year-old’s death has rocked the cycling community.
“The reason why it’s touched so many people is because she’s raced with everyone. Like some people just race one type of bike, but she races all the types of bike,” said Chad Grice, her spouse and training partner.
While Burgess had tried many types of racing, she specialized in cyclocross, cross-country mountain biking and gravel racing. She was a national champion in indoor racing, with podium finishes in national cyclocross in her age group.
Life for the couple consisted of cycling and work, Grice said, with eight to 16 hours of training per week. They trained on the trails together and had two indoor trainers side-by-side at home.
The Langley native grew up sailing with her dad and was part of crews on boats that set records in races around Vancouver Island and from Victoria to Maui, Hawaii, Grice said.
The couple met in 2012 through sailboat racing, sometimes racing together or against each other, and began dating in 2014.
Burgess had always been a commuter cyclist, but she started riding more around 2014 and entered her first cyclocross race in 2017, placing 18th of 34. The event was part of an annual seven-race series on Vancouver Island known as Cross on the Rock for cyclocross races, a closed-circuit event often held in parks that involves occasionally carrying a bike over obstacles.
Burgess is currently sitting in first place of the series after four races this year.
“I don’t know that Lindsay was necessarily just automatically good at whatever she did,” Grice said. “But she works harder than anyone else, and she’s really loyal to things that she does.”
One winter, after breaking her arm snowboarding, Burgess decided she wanted to improve her upper-body strength, thinking it would prevent a future break. She realized it would also help her mountain biking, because she’d be stronger to move the bike around.
“She just always wanted to do better,” Grice said, adding he doesn’t think he would race bikes if it weren’t for Burgess, who was intensely driven and focused on her goals.
Not the type to sit on the couch watching television or have downtime, Burgess always had something planned, he said.
“She didn’t waste any minutes,” said Grice, who spent the early days of their cycling careers chasing Burgess.
She filled notebooks with lessons learned from every race she competed in, noting what she did well and where she could improve, he said.
When the couple became more serious about cycling, they sold their sailboat and moved from a condo to a house in Langford with a garage to fit their bicycles and gear, he said.
Burgess was a “smart racer,” who didn’t take chances, Grice said. While he might take a risk to get ahead of another racer, Burgess would never do that. “She never would blow a stop sign on purpose. She would never go through a red light.”
Grice, who also rode in the event Sunday, doesn’t want to speculate about what happened and is waiting for the results of a police investigation.
Police have said there may have been a miscommunication about right of way at the intersection, which was staffed by a volunteer race marshal, who can direct racers but does not have the ability to control traffic like a certified flagger does. The investigation is ongoing.
Race organizers have said in a statement they are heartbroken by Burgess’s death.
The organizers are friends of Burgess and are committed to doing everything they can to make the race safer, Grice said.
“This is a local youth racing group that does a charity event every year. They’re all close friends of ours, and so they’re mourning as much as anyone.”
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