Bicyclist killed after running stop sign

LANCASTER — A bicyclist riding through Fairfield County in the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure died Friday after he failed to yield at a stop sign and was hit by a pickup truck, the State Highway Patrol said.

Oliver Seikel, 80, of Cleveland, died at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center in Columbus, where he was taken after the 7:30 a.m. crash.

Seikel was riding west on Carroll Eastern Road when he pedaled through a stop sign at the intersection of Route 158. He was hit by a Ford F-150 pickup that Thomas Heistand, 65, of Baltimore, was driving south on Route 158, the patrol said.

Seikel was riding in the 30th annual Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure, which this year routed riders in a loop around central Ohio including stops in London, Circleville, Lancaster and Newark. About 1,500 bicyclists began the ride Sunday in Delaware, where the tour is scheduled to end Saturday. The annual bike tour covers about 50 miles daily and includes overnight camping in towns the cyclists visit.

Seikel, who was a lawyer and a cycling enthusiast, biked 794 miles from his home in Cleveland to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2009 to attend his 50th class reunion at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to an MIT alumni publication.

The crash remains under investigation, the patrol said.