Avid biker and author dies following Easter accident

SHREWSBURY BOROUGH − A Red Bank man whose goal was to log the same number of miles on a bicycle that it would have taken to ride around the world and who was involved in a bicycle crash in the borough while on an Easter Sunday ride has died of his injuries.

Douglas Yorke, 72, succumbed to his injuries at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune on April 11, according to the police and his obituary.

The crash happened about 5:45 p.m. on March 31 on Samara Drive, just south of Obre Place. While on Samara, Yorke’s bicycle and a 2017 Black Honda HRV “contacted each other,” Shrewsbury Borough Police Lieutenant Adam Cerminaro said.

The incident remains under investigation, Cerminaro said Tuesday.

Yorke grew up in Rumson, where his three children were raised. He was a man of many interests - a “meticulous and absurd list-maker,” a passionate writer of postcards and carefully-crafted letters, “including monthly missives to his granddaughter, despite her being too young to read them herself,” and a published author.

He penned op-ed pieces that ran in the New York Times and authored “Hitting the Road: The Art of the American Road Map,” published by Chronicle Books in 1996.

“The world lost one of its most dedicated laughers,” his obituary reads. He was also a devoted cyclist.

Yorke biked all over the East Coast and Texas, on multi-day rides and 100mile runs, “in pursuit of a goal to log enough miles to circumnavigate the globe,” the obituary reads.

A funeral service for Yorke will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 11th at St. George’s-by-the-River Episcopal Church in Rumson, where Yorke, a lifelong member, was “beloved for his resonant readings of lessons (though he was occasionally known to edit scripture on the fly if he thought of a bon mot better than the disciples did),” according to his obituary.