Breedlove - Friends, fellow riders are hit hard

Fri June 24 2005
Posted Jun 23, 2005
6,669

Randy Catron's cell phone wouldn't stop ringing, so he turned it off before telling a co-worker about Dr. Robert Breedlove's progress in the Race Across America. After excitedly talking about his friend and cycling teammate, Catron, 45, of Urbandale, a marketing research manager at Iowa Lutheran Hospital, turned the phone back on. It rang immediately, and he received the news: Breedlove had died that morning after colliding with a truck on the race route. "I was speechless," he said. "It was so weird. I had just been talking about him." Speechless also described the mood of other members of the Des Moines Orthopaedic Surgeons race team, who gathered for their regular Thursday evening ride at Greenwood-Ashworth Park. Their preparations were subdued as each rider continued to absorb the news received only hours earlier. Some hadn't found out until arriving at the park. In the stifling heat, sweat mixed with a few tears of those who described Breedlove as a family man, surgeon and cyclist they had dubbed "the Lance Armstrong of Iowa." "Words cannot even begin to describe the loss to friends, family and the cycling community," said Dave Hammer, 44, of Urbandale. "Who knows the number of people in his professional care that it affected? . . . Everyone in the cycling community in Iowa knows Bob Breedlove, and it will greatly affect us all." Overwhelmed with grief and confusion, the riders, wearing their DMOS jerseys, struggled to understand how their friend - a champion of cycling safety who chose orange as the team color so that riders would be more visible to motorists - could succumb to the dangers of the road. The 30-member DMOS team, made up of men and women ages 12 to 75, has logged thousands of miles and amassed years of riding experience. Breedlove, who often trained separately because his regimen required so many more miles, was always mindful of safety on the road, and no member had experienced a serious accident while riding with the team. Paul Black, 56, of Des Moines is also a veteran ultramarathon cyclist. He last rode in the Race Across America in 1994 and said he knew what his friend must have felt prior to the accident. "There are points when you're so exhausted that you don't know what you're doing and why, but you just keep going," Black said. "It's pretty grueling." The riders, showing off jerseys that read "Dr. Bob Racing," pledged to honor their friend, but for some it was much too soon to do anything but take in the news. "I don't think any of us would ever imagine that we would be talking about Bob Breedlove in the past tense, as related to a cycling accident," Hammer said. "It's just . . . too much." By ABBY SIMONS REGISTER STAFF WRITER June 24, 2005