Fresno man killed in Levi’s GranFondo sought out cycling challenges

Edward Lund had an artist’s gentle nature and a competitive cyclist’s fire for pushing the limits. On Saturday morning, the 54-year-old Fresno man set out on his bicycle determined to test himself on Sonoma County’s grandest cycling stage.

“One of the last things he said to me was, ‘They call me the hammer. When it’s tough, I’ll put the hammer down,’” said Lund’s father, Edward Lund Jr. “I guess he did. He was a lean, mean machine.”

According to witnesses, Lund had the hammer down when he sped through a steep descent Saturday morning northwest of Cazadero during the Levi’s GranFondo charity ride. The CHP estimates Lund was traveling about 35 mph when he missed a left-hand curve on Hauser Bridge Road and careened off the pavement, striking a sign and landing in a dry riverbed. He died at the scene of a head injury.

In emails, maps and on the course that day, race organizers had warned participants about the section of road posing a risk for crashes and urging caution. Lund appeared to have blasted past those warnings.

“It seems pretty clear he took this way too fast,” CHP Officer Jon Sloat said Monday, two days after the fatal crash. “There were witnesses telling him to slow down.”

Levi Leipheimer, the retired professional cyclist and Santa Rosa resident who founded the ride in 2009, on Monday called Lund’s death “a worst nightmare come true.”

“The fact that someone who we started with in the morning .?.?. wasn’t coming back to the finish line - it’s a very sobering emotion,” Leipheimer said by phone from Vail, Colo., where he was participating in a charity ride.

Several of Lund’s friends and relatives said it would not have been out of character for Lund to push the envelope. He was an experienced cyclist of some four decades who trained in the Sierra Nevada near his home and had participated in some of America’s toughest cycling events.

On a family trip to Europe last year, he fulfilled a lifelong dream by witnessing a stage of the Tour de France. He climbed a light pole to gain a better view of the riders whizzing past, his father said.

Off the bike, he was an unfailingly gentle and sensitive soul who brought out the best in others, friends and family said. He worked as a gallery technician in Fresno State University’s department of art and design and also was a founding member of a local art gallery.

He lived with his longtime partner and her daughter. Friends and family said he appeared to be in the best shape of his life, riding every chance he could.

Lund called his father Friday, on the eve of the GranFondo, to share his excitement at participating in the event for the first time. As usual, he ended the call by telling his dad he loved him.

“I won’t hear that anymore,” said the senior Lund, who lives in Stoughton, Wis.

Like many avid cyclists, Lund had been in crashes before, including one in which he suffered a broken collarbone that prevented him from participating in a past Levi’s GranFondo ride, according to his father. But friends said Lund was not one to take extraordinary risks.

“He had a lot of confidence in his own abilities and knew his own body really well,” said Quinn Gomez-Heitzeberg, a Los Angeles artist who attended classes with Lund at Fresno State and also is a devoted cyclist. “He had a lot to come home to. He had a lot of friends and people who care about him being around.”

His cycling feats include completing the grueling Climb to Kaiser ride at least three times, according to online records. The 155-mile ride, billed as one of America’s most challenging, features a lung-busting 8,000-foot climb from Clovis to Kaiser Pass in the Sierra Nevada.

Descending from those heights at speed was a skill he had mastered, friends said, and the descent on Hauser Bridge Road would not have been an unfamiliar test.

“Edward had that skill set,” said Rich Holdsworth, co-owner of Rubber Soul Bicycles in Fresno.

Lund stopped by the bike shop last week to pick up a tire. Holdsworth said he and Lund chatted about how fortunate they were to be where they were in their lives.

“He embraced everything he did,” Holdsworth said.

Levi’s GranFondo is billed as a charity ride and not as a race. Nevertheless, participants are timed and many riders also use mobile apps such as Strava, in which they can measure their performance against other riders. Lund was a member of the Sierra Pacific Cycling Club’s Strava team, going by the name “Edvard.”

“I know when Ed rode something like that he was trying to beat his time,” Gomez-Heitzeberg said. “He was racing a clock. It was a matter of how fast could he do it.”

Said Holdsworth, “Nowadays, every training ride is a race.”

You can reach Staff Writer Derek Moore at 521-5336 or derek.moore@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @deadlinederek.