Stuart was my friend on many a long cycling adventure, usually in the cold and dark. He was beloved by so many of his friends. It’s not hard to see why. He had such a positive spirit, such witty humor, and enthusiasm for life and adventure. He was killed by a driver on Monday, August 17th, 2026.
The Birmingham Bicycle Club announced shortly afterwards that this year’s century would be in honor of Stuart Roberts and the Milligan University cyclists who were killed by a different driver two days later. I signed up for the century and intended to make the day part of an Eddington ride as my own honor to him.
Eddington 250
The Eddington Number is a measure of how many times you have ridden a particular distance. An Eddington 100 would mean a person has ridden 100 miles at least 100 times. Stuart was fascinated with it, and I believe he had set his goal to 100. He sent me a custom stem cap for my own Eddington goal (250), and I believe he had a matching one for his.
With the Eddington stem cap moved over to my road bike, I needed to plan a route to be exactly 256 miles (my updated Eddington goal). I looked at Stuart’s most recent rides on Strava and found this one that he did on my birthday.
I started with the training route above that Stuart liked to do. I headed out north from house to connect with this turning it into a 45 mile loop round trip so I could stop back by the house and get more water/food for the rest of the day. Also, given how wet I was from the humidity and even a bit of fog, I went ahead and changed into some dry biking clothes for the rest of the day.
Then I set out for Columbiana via a mostly straight shot down Hwy 31 / Hwy 119 to Montevallo and then on south into Chilton county before turning back north and working my way over to Calera and AL-70 from there straight across all the hills to Columbiana.
Given that it was Saturday night into Sunday morning, the roads were very quiet. I did a 10 mile stretch from Alabaster down to Montevallo and did not get passed by a single car. Knowing how busy that stretch normally is, I was astonished. I did, however, get stopped by a guy walking on the highway asking me where Co Rd 11 was. I told him he was walking the wrong way and got him turned around to head back north to where Hwy 119 runs into Co Rd 11.
I thought I had figured out my timing pretty well, but I had to make one detour east of Montevallo that made it look like I wasn’t going to get there until 7:15 with the ride starting at 7:30. I picked up the pace quite a bit and rolled into registration at 7:10, got my bib number and wrist bracelet “I ride with Stuart”, and followed some people to the restroom area I could put the bib number on and get out of the heat/humidity for a couple minutes. (I was already 7 hours into my ride, and it was hot and humid all night).
All day riding and remembering
Lloyd was giving last minute instructions and talking about how much Stuart meant to the community when I rolled into the starting group. And then we were off! There were some fast riders who quickly separated into a small lead group. Then I found myself in the second much larger group on the road for a few miles before falling off the back of that with my friend Jason who also knew Stuart well having ridden with him many times.
I was not interested in trying to keep up with the really fast group or even the second group or any groups for that matter and was quite happy that I could just ride along with a friend remembering another friend we had both lost. It was funny how there is so much that physically goes into riding 100 miles together that we switched between focusing on making it to the next rest stop and navigation and then remembering back to another story with Stuart.
One shared experience we had with Stuart was a 300km ride that he had organized with several of the longer distance riders. It was mid-October, but the temperatures dropped down to 43 degF and we were all in shorts and frozen by the time we made it to the gas station where Stuart can be seen pointing at the sign above him that said “Frozen Delights”. He had just made the joke that we were all frozen delights that morning.
I am wearing my Paris Brest Paris vest, and I mention that because it had been Stuart’s goal to compete in the 2027 Paris Brest Paris, which I will be riding again in honor of him next year.
Jason and I struggled on and were joined by Roxanne who had decided the fast group (which she normally crushes) was not for her that day. So the three of us settled into rhythm of riding together through all the hills and enjoying the shade while it was still cool. But that coolness eventually left and the temps climbed up into the mid 90s. The exertion and the hills took its toll on everyone. We stopped at nearly every rest stop, which were all great and run by awesome people. At the last rest stop we picked up Roxanne’s husband Merle who had been with the fast group all day but decided that he needed extended break in the shade before rolling in the last 10 miles with us on the old Alabama state time trial course on Firetower Rd and Joinertown Rd. So many memories, including losing out on the fastest time of the day by 3 seconds to Peter Dudle in 2010 after Mike Olheiser flatted. Peter would be killed by a driver in 2023.
Several awesome things about this route – tons of quiet, shady, and perfectly paved roads. Shelby County has the best transportation planning department in the state (in my opinion). But they are also the wealthiest county in the state, so there may be a correlation, there. The shades from all the tree-lined roads was a God-send all day but especially in the afternoon as it got hotter and hotter. Another awesome thing about this route is the overlap between different distances. So I got to ride and chat with people throughout the day that normally might have been on a different route or that I would have been ahead of all day. But taking my time and I got to enjoy seeing so many people.
More memories of Stuart
In June of 2020, Stuart organized a Father’s Day group ride from Mountain Brook all the way up Cheaha and back. For many riders, this was their longest ride ever. It was a fantastic ride. I think I had ridden with Stuart in a few group rides before then, but I didn’t know him well. We really started to connect after that ride and through BamaRando (Alabama Randonneurs). In all of my cross-country adventures, Stuart would follow my tracking pages and check-in with me on some of the rides.
During Paris Brest Paris in 2023, he sent me a few encouraging texts, and I believe he was excited about the possibility of tackling PbP if not in 2027, then perhaps in 2031. I will ride it next year for Stuart.
On an adventure last summer, I had a particularly bad day of cramps and heat and traffic in Missouri. I posted about it on facebook, and Stuart texted my wife that he wanted to surprise me with food at the end of the day. So he arranged for food to be waiting for me when I made it to my hotel for the night. That was so huge.
On my most recent adventure this summer, I rode my gravel bike from my home in Hoover to Emporia, Kansas to race the Unbound Gravel race. In planning out the route, I had decided to make a loop up into Ontario, Canada on my way back home. I had posted my route and tracking links. I got several encouraging texts from Stuart on the way to the race. Then after the race while I was riding through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Stuart texted me that Lael Wilcox had just started her world record attempt circumnavigating the world by bicycle from Chicago and that our routes would intersect in Gladstone, Michigan and overlap for hundreds of miles into Canada. So thanks to Stuart I was able to adjust my timing the next day and was able to ride for many miles with Lael, crossing the border with her into Canada before saying goodbye (I was stopping for the night, and she was continuing on!). Afterwards, I started sending Stuart pictures via text for the rest of that trip as he said he enjoyed living vicariously through me and Lael and felt like he was getting a taste of the adventure.
We did many randoneurring rides together, but one of the ones that stands out is one that just he and I did. It was a cold November morning and I had biked to the start in Leeds from my house. When he saw me roll in, he said “I knew you would show up” [it was VERY cold for November]. He was hoping that nobody would show up so that he could skip the cold ride. But we had a fantastic ride and talked a lot about ultra distance riding and coming up with a plan to train for PbP 2027.
Finishing up the Eddington for Stuart
After a quick post-ride meal, I channeled my inner-“Terry” and set 2:35pm as my deadline for getting started on the 54 mile ride back home. I had only brought one smaller headlight, and I needed to run it on a higher than normal setting for several stretches of the night, so it was about dead by the time it was bright enough for me to safely turn it off. I told Jason my dilemma and as we progressed through the ride updated him a couple times on the math I was doing for making it home before sunset.
As I left Columbiana, I passed by the pet store (Shelbiana Animal Clinic) I remember pulling over into the parking lot to call my dad to come pick me up on a long bike ride back in 1996 (30 years ago!) when I got lost and ended up back in Columbiana instead of Hoover/Pelham (which is where I thought I was heading). I ended up riding Co Rd 55 up to Hwy 280 and he met me at the intersection which at the time was only a stop sign and no stores. I don’t even think the winery was there, yet.
On this ride, there was a bunch of people parking and heading into a wedding that looked like it was about to start. This was after I rode circles to keep the air moving while waiting for a train to cross the tracks just before the winery. I waved at one person and continued on across 280 thankfully making the light!
I routed myself north through Westover (the old Rollover Westover BBC ride!) staying on Co Rd 55 right by the spot where a driver, who says he was blinded by the sun, plowed into the back of me at full speed while I was only going 13mph. I spent a week in the hospital and had some injuries, but I should have been dead … “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Special water bottle
I made it to the Sterrett gas station and bought 56 oz of gatorade, which I would finish by the time I made it home. A few miles later, I called Kristine while climbing up Vandiver as she and I have so many shared memories from the Heart of the South 500 and now from all the times I call her on the climb towards the end of something crazy I have done … usually Cheaha or riding home from Virginia or who even knows where.
One time I didn’t call her was this year’s Cheaha. Normally I would have been crawling up Vandiver about 285 miles into the day trying to make it home and calling her on Vandiver to update her on my progress, but this year with exceptional heat and humidity, I knew that I wasn’t going to make it home. So I called Stuart who had finished the challenge right as I was heading out to see if he had left yet. He said he was just pulling out of the parking lot, and I asked if he could meet me somewhere so I could catch a ride home with him. I turned around and started riding backwards on the Chief Ladiga and we ended up intersecting at the Weaver trailhead.
Well, I was pretty much out of it, heat exhausted and in trying to remove all the equipment I have all over my bike, I managed to leave my rear radar and my Paris Brest Paris water bottle on the ground beside the car. I realized it about halfway on the drive home as I couldn’t find it anywhere in Stuart’s car beside me. I thought it was just my water bottle, and while it meant a lot to me from the 2023 Paris Brest Paris event, it was also just a water bottle. He suggested I post something to the Chief Ladiga facebook group. When he saw I hadn’t posted anything, he posted a message, and within a matter of minutes somebody said they lived nearby and drove by and found the water bottle and my rear radar which I had apparently left right next to it!
I was so thankful for Stuart taking that initiative. I brought that water bottle out of retirement (pulled it off my memorabilia shelf) and brought it with me on this ride. Back to this ride, I crawled up Vandiver fighting off cramps riding so slowly but made it to the top. Still faced with the challenge of increasing Sunday afternoon traffic and a LOT of motorcycles and sports cars, I was a little nervous but I made it back home eventually back through the same door I had left 18.5 hours earlier and still about 30 minutes before sunset.
RIP Stuart Roberts, my friend, my fellow adventurer, thank you for the memories.
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