Cyclist’s family remember his last ride
Ted Woodley was on his bike most days. On his birthdays he would ride his age in kilometres.
So it was no surprise when the
80-year-old lined up with one of his sons in the Abel Tasman Cycle Challenge, near Nelson, last Saturday. It was to be his last ride.
The father of six, grandfather to 11 and great-grandfather of four is understood to have suffered a heart attack. He died at the base of Marahau hill, near Riwaka, less than 5 kilometres into the 73km race.
His son Kelvin, from Brightwater, was at his side during his final moments.
‘‘He’d fallen off last year around Sandy Bay when he just missed a gear and I immediately thought that’s what he’d done – in that moment I didn’t think anything of it. That he’d swear and curse a bit and get back up . . . but he just lay there.’’
Ted’s family are gathered for today’s funeral at Brightwater to remember a man whose life revolved around sport, music, family and hard work.
A bricklayer by trade, Woodley grew up in the South Otago town of Milton. He moved to Australia in 1979 to get better health care for his late son Christopher, who had leukaemia. He lived with his wife Colleen in Shepparton, Victoria.
Described as a salt-of-the-earth, caring man, he was a mentor to many young cyclists and brickies on both sides of the Tasman.
Woodley would have celebrated his
62nd wedding anniversary with Colleen on January 7. It was that occasion, coupled with Ted’s 80th birthday that prompted Kelvin and him to compete in the inaugural 158km Abel Tasman Cycle Challenge in 2016.
‘‘This year we thought, why not do it again?’’ Kelvin said.
Ted was a fit and experienced cyclist and was well-prepared for the event.
‘‘People jump to a conclusion that here’s some old crock who’s pulled his bike out and over-stressed. This is a man who has spent his life almost 100 per cent training and riding consistently, and we got to an event that is really there for a bit of pleasure,’’ Kelvin said.
Woodley was an active road and track cyclist since his teens, and cycled almost every day.
Before the Abel Tasman event, Ted had completed a 60km training ride. Kelvin said there was no reason to believe he was unwell when they started out from Motueka’s Brooklyn School about 9am.
‘‘Dad rolled up beside me and he said; ‘Do you think we should try and keep up with one of these bunches here?’ I said: ‘If you think you can, so we were just rolling along around 20kmh - not fast,’’ Colleen said. ‘‘We started up the foot of the hill, and we’re talking a really short distance – not even 500m – in that phase you’re trying to sort out which gear you’re going to need to go into to get up the hill. Eventually you find the right one and away you go . . . but we never got there.’’
Realising the situation, a number of riders stopped to help Kelvin administer CPR before ambulances arrived.
At the same time, Colleen and Kelvin’s wife Julie were waiting for the Ted at the top of the hill.
‘‘It was a bloody long time standing there on the side of the road watching all these wonderful people helping dad,’’ Kelvin said. ‘‘They took his helmet off and I just expected him to open his eyes and go; ‘P--- off, you shouldn’t be kissing a man with no teeth’ – his teeth were in my back pocket.’’ Kelvin was ‘‘deeply indebted’’ to police and emergency services for their ‘‘kind and compassionate’’ service on the day.
‘‘I know they worked harder that they thought they needed to, because we asked them to.’’
While Ted had taken his last ride, the family was grateful to have his trusty cycle as a lasting reminder of their patriarch’s love of the sport.
‘‘The bike might not mean that much to other people, but Dad told me after we went for a couple of rides; ‘You know, this is my favourite bike to ride, I can use my nephew’s bike back home, so I’ll just leave it here,’’ Kelvin said.
‘‘I said; ‘Good, we can do this every year, then’.’’