Death of avid cycling enthusiast has family and riding community in mourning | News

Lackey had beat throat cancer. He had survived radiation damage that forced him to take liquids and nutrients through a feeding tube for the rest of his life. He was intubated in a hospital for 53 days in 2012 and lived to tell about it. And last year, he logged an astonishing 10,000 miles on his road bike, and planned to beat that goal this year.

But on Sunday morning, the Kern County native, U.S. Army veteran, retired pipe fitter, father of three and grandfather of six succumbed to traumatic brain injury and its complications. He was 72.

“He never regained consciousness,” said his younger brother Steve Lackey.

“He went out doing what he wanted to do,” said Frankie Lackey, Jim’s wife of 25 years.

“Before he started to ride, he felt like he was just existing — not truly living,” Frankie Lackey told The Californian in a profile of her husband in January 2021.

“He was really sick,” she said. “But he had a fire in him.”

Lackey’s life changed dramatically in 2003 when he was diagnosed with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma of the throat. The Taft native turned Bakersfield resident was given less than a 30-percent chance of survival.

But radiation treatment, chemo and surgery gave him a fighting chance, even as the medical treatments altered the most basic aspects of his life. About a year after the diagnosis, the cancer went into remission.

Yet the struggle continued. Damage to his epiglottis, a small, movable “lid” just above the larynx that prevents food and drink from entering the windpipe, stopped working.

With food solids entering his respiratory system, a potentially deadly problem, Lackey found himself in the hospital on multiple occasions. It nearly killed him in 2012.

Ultimately, he made the decision to have a feeding tube put in — and to give up eating food for the rest of his life.

The biggest challenge turned out to be big family dinners, occasions when shared food and shared closeness were supposed to go hand in hand.

“That was the biggest emotional hurdle to get over for him,” Frankie Lackey recalled.

The biggest physical hurdle was getting back on a bike.

He remembered the freedom he felt being on a bicycle on the open road, the wind in his face, his body doing the work and the bike responding.

“I felt that if I ever get through this illness, if I fight this off, if I get through it and I get the opportunity at all to get on some type of bike, then I’m going to do it,” he told The Californian 20 months ago.

He kept that promise, and took it to a level no one expected.

Kerry Ryan, the owner of Action Sports in Bakersfield, began providing advice on training regimens, nutrition and equipment to Lackey. But Ryan soon realized that Lackey’s determination and courage was having a positive impact, not only on his own outlook, but on others in the riding community.

“I know a few cancer survivors who rode their bikes more after reading Jim’s story,” Ryan said.

“Jim was very humble so I did the bragging for him,” he said. “I always made it a point to let people know his story and his mileage conquests when he was in the store. People found it inspirational.”

Lackey’s rides were usually between 30 and 60 miles. He rode at the coast as often as he could and would routinely climb more than 2,000 feet during those rides, Ryan said.

This was “no small feat for somebody half his age with no cancer history,” he said.

“Because he was on the road almost daily, virtually every avid rider in town knew Jim even if they didn’t know his name,” Ryan said. “This is a tragic loss for his family, as well as our cycling community.”

The dearth of details surrounding the crash has the Lackey family feeling unsettled. It doesn’t add up for them.

“The accident itself is hard to explain,” Steve Lackey said Tuesday as he and Frankie Lackey sat around a table at her home and shared stories and photos of Jim with a reporter.

They knew Jim was pedaling at 13 mph when the crash occurred, because it was recorded on his phone’s cycling app.

He would likely have had plenty of time to avoid the street sign, but even if Lackey hit it, the orange sign is made out of soft cloth.

Steve Lackey believes his brother’s bike helmet came off before his head hit the pavement. Despite Jim’s critical head injuries, there’s not a scratch on the helmet.

“There were some good Samaritans there at the accident scene,” said Steve Lackey. “They gave him CPR and pulled him out of the traffic lane.”

“And we’d like to thank them,” Frankie said.

They also hope someone can shed more light on what exactly happened. Did a driver hit Jim Lackey, throwing him off his bike with enough force to send his helmet flying? 

“We don’t know exactly what happened, or if there were any witnesses,” Steve Lackey said.

An ER doctor told them Jim’s injuries did not appear to be consistent with a fall from a bicycle.

“Steve kept going back to the scene to see if someone had camera footage,” Frankie said.

And so they wait, hoping for more information, even as they try to plan a graveside service at Bakersfield National Cemetery. They are hoping for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 20, but that time and date had not been verified as of press time.

In the meantime, the family asks anyone with more information about the accident to reach out to Steve Lackey at [email protected]