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For 4 cyclists, life's ride ended in a flash
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| Accidents on city streets claimed eclectic,
active lives Portland Tribune, December 30, 2005 By Jacob Quinn Sanders Four bicyclists died on Portland streets in 2005. It's not an unusual number - four died in 2003, five in 2001. They were killed in all parts of the city - North, Northeast, Southeast, downtown. Only one of the four was determined by Portland police to have been at fault in the crashes that took their lives. And in keeping with the average modern-day Portlander, none of them was born in the city. But even in bike-mad Portland, it can be easy to forget those riders once had names, faces, friends and families. Aside from the memorial rides organized in their honor, there is little public accounting of who they were. These are their stories. • • • Kristine Okins was not reticent. Never. Not once. Not about baking, not about graphic design. And certainly not about transportation. She came to Portland by boxcar, train-hopping her way from Minnesota with a pair of friends. Both of her sisters, one older and one younger, also found their way to Portland, though Mom and Dad stayed home in a town called Windom. A graphic designer by training - she attended the Perpich Center of Arts Education and had a bachelor's from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design - she became a bicycle messenger in Portland. She loved her bike and reveled in the freedom of her job, never seriously considering owning a car. But hers wasn't the passive enjoyment of a leisurely soft-pedal ride. Her boyfriend, Billy Bleichner, known as "Spaceman," noticed that even her wavy red hair was aggressive. "If you knew her you knew she was a real adorable badass, and also the sweetest most gentle and sincere girl ever made," he wrote in a message at a Web site he set up in her memory. She was a passionate bicyclist - Bleichner was a mechanic at River City Bicycles until moving after her death to Australia; they built a bike together - and was working when she was hit. Around 9:15 a.m. June 27, Okins, 25, was on her bike, in the bike lane, facing south on Southwest Broadway at a red light at Washington Street, a Freightliner semitruck next to her. As always, she wore a helmet. The light turned green, both started south, and Okins darted ahead of the semi, which had in tow a 45-foot-long trailer loaded with metal. Approaching Alder Street, witnesses saw Okins and her bike under the truck, which police estimated was traveling five miles per hour. When police arrived, she was conscious and talking to paramedics. Taken to Oregon Health & Science University, her condition deteriorated rapidly. She died the next day. The driver of the truck was not charged. More on Kristine Okins |
