Bicyclist's death remains painful

Oakland Tribune, Jul 28, 2007

On July 29, 2006, Ed Weiss went for a bicycle ride and was struck and killed by a motorcycle. He was riding on a stretch of road in the Oakland hills that police, residents and cyclists say is like a racetrack.

The motorcyclist who hit him was riding a high-performance bike that he admits to police having raced on public tracks.

Police reports say he was speeding, that he might have crossed the double yellow line. He claims he did neither.

But Weiss was deaf and, for whatever reason, wasn't wearing a bicycle helmet.

Could Weiss have been the one to cross over the double yellow line pumping his bike up the slight hill?

Could it have cost him his life?

His family says no, and they want the man who hit and killed him charged.

A year later, the motorcyclist has never been cited, arrested or charged in connection with the death. But under pressure from the family, police and the district attorney's office have not closed the case and are having a second accidentreconstructionist look into the case. Oakland police are also conducting an internal affairs probe of the accident investigation.

On Sunday, a group of bicyclists will gather in the hills for a memorial bike ride in honor of Weiss. His family will unveil a headstone dedicated to the brother they loved and lost. And no matter the outcome of the case, they will hope that motorists and bicyclists can find a way to share the road safely. This is the story of Ed Weiss.

By Kristin Bender

OAKLAND -- It was clear, dry and warm when Ed Weiss set out for his daily bicycle ride that Saturday afternoon last July.

It might have been the perfect summer day for a ride.

At 5 foot 10 and 176 pounds, Weiss, 50, was lean and strong without much body fat. He often logged hundreds of miles each week plowing up and down the steep Oakland hills or from his house near Skyline High School to Alameda or North Berkeley and back home again.

A tree trimmer by trade, Weiss was, his friends and family joked, was built much like a tree -- lanky and solid.

They also said he was in better physical shape than men half his age.

"He rode every day," said his brother, Rick Schiller.

Weiss was a solitary guy.

He lived alone.

He never married and did not have a girlfriend or partner. Both his parents died before he was 16 and he learned to fend for himself early on. He often worked by himself and he mostly enjoyed solitary pleasures -- road biking, zipping through a book a day and tinkering with cars and his 30 or so bicycles.

He had a rough side -- he wasn't afraid to say what he meant, use colorful language or argue about philosophy, science or other subjects he was passionate about.

"Ed was very honest, a salt-of-the earth type of person," said his sister, Jasmine Tokuda, 48, of Alameda. "He would say what was on his mind and give advice whether people wanted it or not. He had sharp and clear observations about stuff ... He had no problem voicing an opinion."

Friends and family remember a man with a wicked sense of humor and a "Rube Goldberg"-like knack for fixing gadgets. His house in the Oakland hills was filled with more bike parts than furniture.

Weiss had a selfless streak that would send him out into a rainy night to help a buddy with a broken down car, friends recalled, and he was a doting uncle who would show up at his sister's house with bikes for her children.

"There's always that uncle that helps kids do things and fix things, and he was that uncle to my kids," Tokuda said.

Even after he lost his hearing following a nasty fall from a tree where he was working more than two decades ago, he didn't shy away from that type of work.

"He was as tough as nails," said Schiller, 59, of Piedmont. "Nobody could do the insane jobs that he would take on."

But his fearless nature wasn't without consequences.

First there was the tree accident, at age 27, when he fell 40 feet, fracturing his skull and leaving him deaf. He left the hospital after less than a week -- with spinal fluid still leaking from his ears -- to recuperate on a piece of plywood at a friend's home.

Another time, he sliced open an artery in his leg with a power tool but held it together with his own hands while he was hauled away on a stretcher.

He once cut off the tip of his finger with a power saw.

But friends and relatives swear he'd never had a bicycle accident in all the years he'd been peddling.

Never.

He didn't wear a helmet because he came of age in the 1970s -- a time when helmets weren't commonplace or accepted -- relatives said. He liked the feeling of being free.

His last ride

No one knows exactly where Weiss was going when he headed out on his bike on the afternoon of July 29, 2006.

He might not have been headed anywhere in particular. Maybe he was just out for a ride, clearing his head, communing with nature.

He was about three miles from home, southbound in the 8200 block of Skyline Boulevard near the intersection of Shepherd Canyon, Pinehurst and Manzanita roads, when he was hit by a motorcyclist coming from the opposite direction.