Day 33: Today I almost died. Being the trip photographer and videographer, I thought being behind the camera was safer then the days I chose to ride. This illusion had been confirmed after witnessing the aftermath of Kendra’s brush with a car and Tim Shenk’s encounter with pavement following a blowout down a hill. But after today’s experience, I think camera operators should be moved up a few notches on the list of world’s most dangerous jobs (perhaps below the snake handlers).

To set up the scenario, I must start earlier in the day. We had the largest number of riders to date this morning. Caleb Yoder, an EMU grad and native of the Kalona area, joined us for the day. We were also joined by new BikeMovement members Neil Richer and Kristen Swartley. Bekah joined the riders for the morning before taking a tumble right before our first break. With 12 total bikers, I decided to take extra road footage today.

For our lunch break, we reached the Mississippi river, and found the perfect camping spot. We swam, ate lunch in the shade, and half the group even took a nap. After our extended two hour lunch break, the group was preparing to leave for the last stretch into Moline, Indiana. I decided to film the group leaving the campground, so I walked to the opposite side of the road, and set up the video camera and tripod to where I had a shot of the campground driveway with the river and railroad crossing in the background. I was ‘safely’ off of the highway by a good 4 feet on the gravel shoulder.

After about 8 minutes of waiting, the first group of riders drove by, and I followed them in the viewfinder as they disappeared over the hill (they usually split up into two groups because it is safer on the road). A couple minutes later the second group appeared, and made the turn onto the 2-lane road. As I followed them up the hill, a car going the opposite direction (lane nearest to me) began to slow and signal a left turn into the camping area. With a car obstructing my view of the riders, I started to zoom in to get a better shot…

Suddenly a loud screech caught my attention, and I looked up from the viewfinder (turning off camera in the process), and saw a large white van braking hard, and swerving around the turning car and coming straight for me on the shoulder. Fortunately there was a grassy area behind me and the van zoomed around me on the grass while I clung to my tripod and camera making myself as small as possible.

What proved to be the scariest moment was when I realized there was a third car traveling even faster. As it swerved past the turning car, it had no where to go without hitting either the first car or the van ahead of it. Instead it took the middle lane, coming straight at me. Realizing this, I grabbed the tripod and camera and did a quick leap backwards into the tracks of the van that had just passed me. The third car flew past, and tore off down the road.

A very shaky van driver jumped out of his van. He was about my age, and appeared to be in shock, and couldn’t quite even process what just happened, or what might have happened. Remarkably, I felt very calm, but I could still feel the adrenaline kick, and my heart beating. We chatted for several minutes and talked through what had just happened, and I even gave him a BikeMovement card. The lady in the turning car also came back to make sure everybody was okay.

Later I watched the video, and saw that I caught the screeching van, but the video cut out just as the van was swerving towards me. So I was a little angry that I had turned the camera off, but was also very thankful that I had made it out of the situation without a scratch.

Download the video clip

Posted by Denver Steiner

This entry was posted on Friday, August 11th, 2006 at 4:55 am and is filed under Trip06. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.