A New Place to Sit Is a Place to Remember Mauled Biker

A small group dedicated a bench on Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park’s tallest peak Sunday as a memorial to Mark Reynolds, who nine months ago was killed by a mountain lion in the park.

During the afternoon ceremony, a poem written for Reynolds by his aunt Carol Angeli was read: “Do not weep for me too long. I do not sleep I am not gone but over some ridge. Riding. Riding. Riding.”

About 20 friends looked toward the majestic, lavender Santa Ana Mountains and heard the wind cut through the brush as they held each other and wept during the poem’s recital.

The 35-year-old, who lived in Foothill Ranch and loved mountain biking, was riding alone about noon Jan. 8 in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park. He was mauled while apparently crouched to fix a broken bicycle chain along Cactus Ridge trail. It was the state’s sixth recorded death by mountain lion attack, and the first since 1994.

On Sunday, friends reached the top of Dreaded Hill, to pay respects to Reynolds and see the bench, which was placed at the site two weeks ago.

The bench was made from a cedar tree owned by Bev and Kerry Brown of San Bernardino County, who organize a mountain bike race in Running Springs, also in that county, now renamed the Mark J. Reynolds Memorial Stage Race. Reynolds won a prize in the event in 2002.

After his death, some of Reynolds’ friends came up with the bench idea but then struggled to find a felled tree. The Browns, who knew Reynolds, stepped forward with a tree already cut.

“It was meant to be,” said Melissa Fletcher, who led the bench project.

The day Reynolds was attacked, Anne Hjelle, 30, another mountain biker, was attacked later that day by the same cougar. But she survived because a friend held onto her, and two passersby threw stones at the lion, until it let go. She attended the event Sunday.

“We shared a passion,” Hjelle said. “I have a special connection with him.”

Reynolds’ love for biking lives on in the cyclists with whom he rode, on a 16-person team.

“To us, he is our guiding light,” said Marissa Brand, a close friend and teammate. “This year, he is the power behind our legs.”

Fletcher, also a team member, said she thinks of Reynolds often.

“I’m in a race and I’m feeling sluggish, and I think that Mark would say, ‘Get your butt in gear,’ ” she said.

During the ceremony, Fletcher and others encouraged people to donate to the Mark J. Reynolds Memorial Children’s “First” Bicycle Fund,

www.mark reynoldsfund.com, which provides bikes and helmets to underprivileged children. The first bike giveaway is set for Oct. 29 in St. Louis, near Reynolds’ hometown of St. Joseph. Bikes will also be given away in other cities where he lived.

Reynolds, who was an account executive for a Kentucky-based marketing firm that represents extreme-sports athletes, had given bikes to Southland charities at Christmas.