Motorcyclists

A 27-year-old Pomona man died Saturday when the motorcycle he was riding went down in the Orange Crush freeway interchange. Authorities did not release his name. The 10 a.m. accident occurred in the transition lanes of the southbound Orange Freeway to the westbound Garden Grove Freeway, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said. No other vehicles were involved, he said.

For 13 days this summer -- one day for each year he'd lived with the chronic pain and fatigue of Crohn's disease -- Robert Gagne gleefully rode his pearl-white Yamaha Road Star nearly 5,000 miles through 17 states, sometimes logging 12 hours on the motorcycle. He saw Mt. Rushmore and Colorado's Estes Park. He woke up one July morning in Rapid City, S.D., and went to bed 693 miles away in La Crosse, Wis.

A never-ending subject of conversation in these parts is the "you'll-never-guess-what-I-saw-on-the-freeway-today" story. On the laobserved.com website, mystery novelist Denise Hamilton relates "the most horrifying thing" she's encountered recently: a guy on a sports motorcycle on the 134 Freeway, near Glendale, "popping wheelies at 70 mph. " 'Oh my God,' I said, not believing my eyes.

A motorcyclist was killed Sunday in an accident on a Costa Mesa Freeway onramp, the California Highway Patrol said. The 56-year-old Pomona victim was not identified. The crash on the Katella Avenue onramp to the northbound lanes occurred about 12:55 a.m., a CHP spokeswoman said.

Motorcyclist deaths in Los Angeles County rose 67% between 1999 and 2003, and hospitalizations are also on the rise, the county's Department of Heath Services reported last week. The increases follow a large drop in fatalities and serious injuries after a universal helmet law took effect in the state in 1992. Local health experts said that though the numbers of deaths and hospitalizations had not yet reached pre-1992 levels, the upward trend is alarming.

A motorcyclist died late Saturday after plowing into a car while apparently racing another biker in Anaheim, police said Sunday. The collision took place about noon when Jeffrey Charters, 19, of Anaheim, traveling south on State College Boulevard, hit a Toyota Camry turning from Cortney Way. Charters died at 10 p.m. at UCI Medical Center in Orange, Sgt. Rick Martinez said. The Camry driver was hospitalized with minor injuries.

A Murrieta man died after losing control of his motorcycle and crashing on Ortega Highway, authorities said Thursday. Kieran Doyle, 45, was driving east along the highway in unincorporated Orange County, near San Juan Capistrano, about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday when he lost control, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol said. He was ejected when the motorcycle fell on its side, she said. Doyle died at the scene. Authorities are investigating.

A 21-year-old Lake Forest man died after losing control of his motorcycle and hitting a curb, authorities said Wednesday. Sergio Valencia was driving a 2005 Kawasaki west on Alton Parkway near Valley Oak Drive approximately 100 mph about 9 p.m. Tuesday, according to Irvine police, when he lost control, hit a curb and was ejected. Valencia died at the scene, police said. It appears that alcohol was a factor in the crash, they said.